


A seedling

by caycep



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Dom/sub, Drug Use, F/F, Light BDSM, Minor reference to suicide, Rope Bondage, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Some angst, Who am I kidding lots of Angst, dom!cat, sub!Kara, supercat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2018-11-03 10:03:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10964991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caycep/pseuds/caycep
Summary: She repeated “I am normal” and “I am ordinary” both to herself and to the woman on the other side of the desk, who seemed entirely disinterested at first, but whose attention was growing with each second Kara spent in the room.“I just want to be useful... to somebody. I want to be worthwhile,” she said, and it was as much an admission as it was a plea, since with those words came an exchange of power. Whether aware of it or not, Kara was bending the knee before the Queen and asking to be made hers.





	1. A seedling

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to MikoNeko for being my first friend here and supporting me at all times. Thanks to PiperHG for giving me the very best, most honest advice and pushing me to make this better, even when I had given up. Lastly a thousand thanks to koalabear77 and imperfectionisunderratedhbc for beta, there'd be a lot more commas in this text if it weren't for these two ;)

The playground was empty, all the children gone for the day. This was by far Kara’s favourite time to be outside. The red light of the evening, as the sun set on the horizon, reminded her of Rao, of Krypton, of home. If she squinted a little, she could pretend she was in a dome overlooking the great plaza, pods and ships shooting in the sky instead of flies, skyscrapers in lieu of palm trees.

Kara walked towards the swing set and lowered herself onto one, then sat there, dangling her feet for a bit. She looked at the sand and dust that covered her shoes, wondering what Eliza would think of the fact that she disobeyed again.

Kara Danvers always had a problem with self-control. Ever since the first step she took on this strange planet, since the rays of Earth's yellow sun started shining on her, imbuing her skin with warmth and power, she knew she was not strong enough to control it.

Something inside her had been stirring right from the start - a beast, a monster, with its teeth bared in anger - craving release, looking for ways to escape the imagined boundaries of her body. A girl’s body, slender and graceful, hardly a paragon of violence, of confidence.

The urge was like a seedling, small at first, but getting bigger and bigger with every heartbeat. A tiny ball of fire crackling and growing and gushing with energy. The urge was burning bright and endless, consuming everything it touched. The only way Kara had found to rein in the intoxicated feeling was discipline and isolation.

Then, Jeremiah had given her _the glasses_ , the very same she wore to this day, and the defect to her sight, in effect a handicap, had been such a source of relief. Through the lead-lined lenses, she could finally find a small comfort, an opportunity to relax. Impairing herself made her physically weaker, something that she had never considered before. It was a constant reminder that pushing back was possible, real even. In weakness, in constraint, Kara found freedom for the first time.

At least until a little boy had been in trouble. Until she saw that _none of the teachers were doing anything about it_ . Until the frustration got the best of her, and she grabbed the bully by the collar of his shirt and asked him to please _pick on somebody his own size_. The look he gave her was genuine disbelief. “Or what?” were his last snarky words, before he was flung across the yard and against the oak tree.

She hadn’t meant to shove him, but he had been _so disrespectful_ . He was an absolute coward for picking on Tommy, half his size and two years his junior, and there was no excuse for his behaviour. There was no excuse for _her_ behaviour.

As the school nurse dragged Jonah away, his arm bent at a strange angle, face streaked with tears, she noticed the looks. The surprise and fear in their eyes. The way the kids had been whispering to each other as they saw her look back. They were afraid of her. She felt a strange mix of thrill and shame at the thought.

***

Kara heard the car approaching the house, her senses focused on the two, no, three men exiting the vehicle and making their way to the Danvers’ front door. Their boots were heavy on the porch, their stride precise, _military_.

She heard voices muffled by the distance and, through the strain required to filter away all the noise, she heard their respectful tones, their words calm and considerate. She heard her mother thank them, refuse further assistance, close the door without extending an invitation. More boots. An engine roaring back to life, the car rushing away from their property. The sound of broken glass. A whimper, a sigh. Silence.

Well before descending the stairs, Kara noticed the sobs, a wheezing, rattling sound, impossible to ignore. She struggled to suppress her senses as each shaky breath chipped away at her resolve, sharp and unrelenting.

She thought she’d approach innocently: “ _Mom? I heard glass breaking. Are you alright? Can I help?”_ And as she turned the corner she felt her knees buckle and her heart sink. Alex and Eliza knelt on the kitchen floor, towels scattered at their feet. The shards of a broken vase lay thoroughly ignored in their vicinity. Kara focused on the water slowly pooling around the fragments, the flowers, their smell distractingly sharp, reminded her of something rotten, left in the sun for too long during summer. The lurid colour of the petals was stinging her eyes, so she closed them, paused for a second to catch her breath. _Her father was not coming home_.

Kara thought she had seen everything, that she had experienced loss, disaster. All of a sudden she was back in her pod watching Krypton explode, feeling as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. She had been unable to scream, to make any sound at all. Everything and everyone she cared about had just gone up in flames. Erased, annihilated forever. She had banged her fists against the windows of her ship, hopeless to do anything else.

The way Alex and Eliza reacted to the news reminded her of that. How they hugged each other in silence, too terrified and desperate to even cry. She watched them with a detached curiosity, and in their figures she saw the blast, the flames enveloping Krypton; she felt the heat of a whole world exploding, caressing her with the touch of a distant memory.

How to live with loss, that was not a lesson Kara thought that she would have to learn more than once, but seeing Alex and her mother so stricken, so defenceless, she realised, in no uncertain terms, that it was time to restrain the beast and to be the one to bear their burden for once.

The urge, the seedling, had seemed like a secondary worry under the circumstances. The ball of fire, after all, had been tamed to a manageable size. Jeremiah had helped her shape it. They carefully constructed a cage for it to learn boundaries. A box that could be closed. A space inside her where all the things that made her anxious, angry, and different could be hidden.

“The world already has a Superman,” Jeremiah had said on the day he gave her the glasses. “All you need to be is Kara Danvers.”

Kara Danvers, _unlike Kara Zor-El_ , was someone who would walk up to her mother and her sister, hold their hand as they let themselves fall apart. Kara Danvers knew how to put on a brave face and comfort her sister now that they had both lost a father

She would make sure their grief could melt away, muffled and dull, replaced with happy new memories - a future where Kara’s struggle to control her powers was all but forgotten.

And so it was that Kara had grown up to be a joyous, friendly girl. Hers was a brand new persona crafted out of the shards of her shattered childhood. Her walls were built up high and solid so they could look like a sunny smile, her self-control meticulously braided in her golden hair, the enthusiasm that shone from her fueled by the sacred fire of duty.

On her best days, Kara would manage to fool herself, to think that the barricade was permanent. But as the years flew by, her arguments of reassurance were beginning to ring hollow, outdated. Cracks were starting to show. When she looked over the edge, she could see hordes of barbarians looming in the distance.

***

_I am civilised_ , Kara said to herself.

_I can control myself_ , she repeated like a mantra.

_I can ignore it for a little while longer._

She entered Cat Grant's office as if in a drunken haze - grinning with effortless joy and extending her positivity as if it were a peace offering - in spite of being referred to as “my 10:15” first and “gosh, another millennial” only a few moments after.

She repeated “I am normal” and “I am ordinary” both to herself and to the woman on the other side of the desk, who seemed entirely disinterested at first, but whose attention was growing with each second Kara spent in the room.

“I just want to be useful... to somebody. I want to be worthwhile,” she said, and it was as much an admission as it was a plea, since with those words came an exchange of power. Whether aware of it or not, Kara was bending the knee before the Queen and asking to be made hers.

Her offer did not go unnoticed.

“I think you should know that I expect complete and utter devotion to this job. Are you willing to sacrifice everything in your life to be my assistant?”

Kara swallowed hard, measuring the words she just heard, equal parts eager and terrified.

“Yes. Yes of course!” Delight burst out of her as if lifting a curtain from a window, and she stood there, dumbfounded for a few seconds, letting reality sink in.

***

Of all the assistants Cat had over the years, she didn't think Kara was going to last this long. Longer than anybody else in fact. She could remember the day of her interview as if it were yesterday. Kara was a bundle of nerves, constantly fidgeting with her glasses, raising and lowering them on the bridge of her nose, never quite managing to make eye contact. Ordinarily, girls like her would get chewed up and swallowed in half a day's time, bones and all. This girl, however, made an impression.

Cat couldn't point out exactly what it was that moved her to hire her 10:15 over the others, but she rarely ignored an instinct when it spoke to her so clearly. This girl is special, it told her, you'll see. She scribbled "Reporter" on her résumé and stuffed the manila folder in the bottom drawer of her desk, the only one she kept locked at all times.

For the first few days, business proceeded as usual. The girl would follow her around and generally try not to make too many mistakes. Cat would type WRONG in bold, red letters whenever the tone of some invitation was too formal or too relaxed. She would shout and she would pout and she would drop her latte in the rubbish bin, untouched, without even the most superficial evaluation of its temperature.

All of this would have broken a lesser girl than Kara, but evidently, she was motivated to keep her promise. She said she _just wanted to help_ with the most puppy-faced admission of innocence Cat had ever seen. Or rather, the first one that looked even half believable.

Kara quickly picked up which ones were the right moments to show up with a soothing cup of tea or sneak into her office to refill her glass of M&M’s. She stood behind her during meetings, noting down every important detail, only to relay them back in distilled form, neatly prioritised. Kara personally vetted every _itamae_ from the top sushi restaurants in town and regularly got her the best seats for concerts and events.

_What is it about this girl?_ Cat wondered as she stared blankly at the space just outside her office where the assistant's desk stood, currently unoccupied.

***

“What? You think the world doesn’t need another hero?” Kara thought that, of all the people in her life, Alex would understand

“Of course it needs another hero. How many heroes are too many? What I’m trying to say is that, well, why does it have to be _you_?”

“Do you see anybody else around? Rao! This is important to me Alex.” Her initial excitement was being rapidly replaced by an itchy feeling in her hands. She clenched her fists instinctively.

“I have always felt unnecessary. I was sent here to protect my cousin, and when I finally get here… He’s all grown up! Doesn’t need me at all! Do you have any clue what that feels like? Hiding for all these years, feeling completely fucking useless?” Kara spun around, fury heating her up like a furnace, “I want to _help people_. This is the only thing that will keep me sane.”

“You are putting yourself in danger. I think that’s foolish and irresponsible.” The look she gave her was halfway between condescending and concerned. If there was something Kara learned about her sister, it was that, once she made up her mind, she was not going to back down.

Alex’s sentiments echoed conversations she’d once had with Jeremiah about her powers. _“It is not safe, Kara,”_ and, _“The rules about using your powers are there for your protection.”_ Somehow they had seemed a lot more reasonable to her twelve-year-old self.

“You know what I think is irresponsible? Asking me to bottle this up for all these years. I can fly! For Rao’s sake, I can fly, and I have to hide because putting myself out there, even if it’s saving a plane from crashing, is considered foolish. Think whatever you want. I have made my choice.”

“Well, good for you!” Alex grabbed her purse and stormed out of the room, leaving Kara by herself. The TV in the background was still showing shots of her evening antics.

“Good!” Kara yelled at the closed door. “Just… fucking peachy,” she muttered under her breath as she slumped back on the couch, the excitement and anger deflating her.

***

Cat Grant was sprawled out on her luxurious leather couch nursing her third glass of bourbon. As she zapped through the channels, eyes rolling in boredom at the events unfolding on the TV screen, she wondered whether there was any point in her life at all.

_What is the point of building a media empire, sacrificing the best years of my life at the altar of Career and Success, if I can’t even spend a single evening alone without reverting back to this?_

She took a look at the amber liquid sloshing in her glass, rolled it around the edge listening to the splattering sounds, wet and subtle. She took a small sip, careful to perceive its specific taste, the quality, texture, and layers that would justify the exorbitant price tag of the vintage. The lukewarm liquid dulled her apathy a little as it travelled through her chest. With a flick of her wrist, she finished the rest of her drink, then lay back, head resting on the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling.

_I can’t even have fun making my assistant cry anymore because this one just won’t budge. I gave it my best shot, and she always seems to bounce back with a smile somehow._ Feeling a little chilly, she glanced to her side where a silk comforter rested, neatly folded and just out of reach. She pictured herself standing up and grabbing it, but then she quickly realised she did not have an ounce of willpower left in her.

_I already have one failed marriage under my belt. My mother thinks I’m a failure. My oldest son won’t speak to me, and Carter… Well, Carter is probably the only reason I haven’t just swallowed a bunch of pills and killed myself by now._

She pictured Carter’s silent stare as they had breakfast together earlier that morning.  He busied himself pushing his cereal around in the bowl, making a point to avoid eye contact. Her stomach couldn’t handle more than two Tylenol tablets and a glass of water. _He’s growing up so fast, He doesn’t say anything but he knows._

Cat now lay robbed of her strength after a long day of professional disappointment and yelling at her staff. She traced the rim of her empty glass with one finger: it had grown very heavy, or her hand very weak, more so than it had been when full. The urge to reach for the bottle and fill it again was almost too powerful to resist. _What’s one more drink?_ she thought bitterly. _What’s two?_

Carter again filled her mind. _That boy is the light of my life. Someday soon he’ll grow into a proper teenager: the wool over his eyes will be gone, and he’ll turn on me._ She grabbed the bottle of bourbon at that and unscrewed the cap, pouring a generous amount in the glass.

She was about to give up and call it a night when her attention was hijacked by a message appearing on the news ticker at the bottom of the screen. She unmuted the TV and sat up straight on the couch, listening to the anchorman reporting the story.

“The passengers of flight 237 to Geneva appear to have a guardian angel. When what many are reporting to be a flying female rescued them from certain death...” The glass of bourbon was abandoned on the side table, untouched.

“Oh, this is interesting,” she caught herself saying out loud as the images of the flying girl carrying the plane looped in front of her “Maybe running a media company is not such a waste of time after all…”


	2. Out of some unbearable joy or relief

“So what do you think?” Alex dropped on the couch, bouncing slightly, then reached for the takeout box on the nearby table. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Yeah alright, I have to admit you have a cooler job than mine.”

“Hey! Not everybody can be an executive assistant to a billionaire media mogul.” Her smirk was like a childish dare, mockery dripping from her words.

Kara groaned, stealing the box of potstickers and dipping sauce. “It just so happens that I quite enjoy working at CatCo.” She stuffed two of them in her mouth. They were gone in a split second. “Of course, it can’t beat being employed by a super secret government organisation…”

“Nonsense. Besides, Director Henshaw made it pretty clear that you can work with us as often as you like.” Alex grabbed a potsticker from the box on Kara’s lap, chewing carefully before continuing. “You know Kara… I was a bit sceptical at first, you know, with the whole costume and the sidekicks at the office… What I’m trying to say is that I was wrong about you. I think you’re in it for the right reasons, and I’m proud of you. I’m proud to be _Supergirl’s sister_.”

“Awww.” Kara dropped her chopsticks and enveloped her in a tight bear hug. “I’m so happy we’re not fighting about this anymore.”

Holding her sister, Kara thought of the pressure she had felt those past few days, what being rejected by Alex had felt like, her choice of being a superhero thrown back in her face, and the initial shock (but not much of a real surprise) as her sister revealed herself as working for the DEO like her father before her. Alex had been an unwitting accomplice in Jeremiah’s scheme to get her to hide her true self, and this frustrated Kara to no end.

But here they were, holding each other tight, relieved and full of optimism.

“You know Alex, I couldn’t imagine doing this without you.”

Alex smiled at that, smooth and serene. “You don’t have to.”

Kara stole a glance at the city lights outside, sitting back on the couch. She took a deep breath, trying to remember what it felt like to have the night air lashing at her face, cold and exhilarating. That exact feeling of when she clenched her fists and propelled herself upwards, shooting towards the sky, her loose hair flapping behind her with the cape.

It comforted her to think about flying, although using her powers freely, even using them for good, hadn’t been as liberating as she imagined. She thought it would be like recovering from an old injury, like growing a limb back. She pictured herself setting aside the crutches and the wheelchair forever, finally able to run like the wind, screaming the way she hadn’t been able to scream when her parents died, the way she should have, when her whole planet exploded.

As she soared among the clouds, as she pulled bodies from burning wreckages, she envisioned the hole in her heart being filled, the pieces of her broken self mending themselves, merging back into their original shape. She thought of her mother’s hologram and her inspiring words. How she had felt her destiny’s pull then, and she had wept, out of some unbearable joy or relief, when she realised she had started on the right path.

In reality, being a superhero had been more like suddenly remembering how to breathe. It was obvious to her that it was _normal_ , a baseline for staying true to herself. She wondered if Kal-El had ever felt this way, wished it was easier to have these kinds of discussions with him. Aside from the occasional word of encouragement and sparse family visits, she felt as distant from him as she was to any other person in her life, save for Alex.

“Alex,” she started, furrowing her brow, “there is something, though…” And all of a sudden, her courage was gone. She knew what she had to say, that even though beginning her life as Supergirl had been breathtaking, she did not feel quite comfortable unleashing a part of herself she wasn’t sure she could control. Having kept it under wraps for all these years made her feel sunburnt and exhausted, made her crave some of the cool shade that she enjoyed in hiding.

The seed of anger, frustration, and despair had been dormant for twelve years, and now that she let the sunlight in after so long, there was no way to stop its frantic growth.

***

Kara looked down at her hands, panting hard. The broken arm of the _Red Tornado_ lay on the ground, still covered in ice from her freeze-breath. If she had been anything other than bulletproof, her knuckles would now be a messy red pulp. Instead, a faint ache, disappearing rapidly, was the sole reminder that she could punch pretty much anything into submission.

She could feel her heart drumming in her chest, the shock of what she just did washing over her in waves. She could not help but stare uselessly at the robot as it jumped towards the sky and flew away. Squinting in the sun, she could not tell where it went.

There was a voice inside of her screaming above the confusion, “ _You did it,_ ” it roared “ _you broke it, you beat their stupid test_.” It was strong enough to drown out the shame, the embarrassment she would normally have felt as General Lane yelled at her that _it was her fault._

“Your recklessness has unleashed an uncontrollable killing machine on National City”.

Kara gritted her teeth, barely keeping her cool. _Sir, if only you knew about the other_ uncontrollable killing machine _standing right in front of you, you wouldn’t be talking to me in that tone_. She stopped herself from saying anything of the sort, thanking Rao she had the self-control to do at least that much. But slowly, as the situation settled into normalcy she realised she did cross a line with Red Tornado there.

She could have stopped, had she put in the effort, but it felt _good_ to have something to unleash her true strength onto. With every punch came the confirmation that she _was_ stronger than him. Strong enough to beat him. Strong enough to prove to every sceptical man out there that she was a force to be reckoned with.

General Lane. Lucy’s dad, of all people. Yet another walking personification of white male privilege. A man whose matter of fact arrogance made it clear that he was used to ordering people around and not taking no for an answer. It was people like him that drove her crazy. With their blind prejudice towards aliens, lacking respect for those among them who would risk their lives every day to help humans… he made it seem like violence was the answer to every question. She could understand why her cousin refused to work for the government, and why James was so beat up about him.

The latent defiance in her scared her a little, as this was not her first misstep. She knew she had to learn to use her powers while shutting out her emotions. She needed to find a way to prevent her feelings from getting tangled into it all. But how, when her enemies were targeting her personally? When the government, instead of helping her fight the alien terrorists, would rather test their newest toy on her? And then get mad when she broke it.

As Supergirl, she felt sabotaged at every turn. At least she could find a small oasis of peace at her day job.

***

 _Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit._ The phrase, repeated over and over in her head, was starting to lose its meaning. Like when you take a close look at a word, spin it around, and echo it in your mind, its sounds becoming just that: sounds. The “ _oh_ ” a simple round vowel, the “ _sh_ ” sibilant and gruff, the “ _it_ ” hitting teeth in conclusion.

As the elevator rode down, she stared at her feet in shame.* I work so hard for you, I don’t ask questions, I don’t complain, and all you do is yell at me and tell me I’m not good enough.* Dizzy from the burst of anger, she kept reliving the scene in her head. The shocked response as her own words rushed out of her. Cat’s unimpressed face, her expression an icy mask. The single finger raised, touching lips, signalling for her to stop talking.

She had followed Cat out of the office. “Forward the phones. We’re going.” she had said before grabbing her purse and heading out the door. Kara walked a little behind her, at a loss for anything else to do.

After the third Martini, Cat had started to feel less threatening. Sitting next to her still felt like being in a shark tank covered in blood, but at least she had stopped shaking. Kara sighed and relaxed a little, resting her back on the couch. She brought the slanted glass to her lips and took a sip. Her throat had been parched all evening.

Her boss had lowered her defences for her, allowed a peek into her vulnerabilities, in order to teach an important lesson: “Whatever you do, you cannot get angry at work. Especially when you’re a girl.” Their bodies were close, their knees almost touching, and Kara could smell the alcohol on their breath, hot and sticky. “Find that anger behind the anger,” Cat had said earlier, slurring her words a little. “You need to figure out what is really making you mad.” Kara shuddered, cringing at the words in her memory. As if shaking her head would make them go away.

Kara was still very much surprised at the fact that, instead of getting mad, Cat had decided to take the opportunity to open up to her, offer her help. She had carved out a third path, between rage and repression, something Kara could not quite see clearly yet, but that was starting to take hold in her.

After all one of the happiest, most stable parts of her life - up until today at least - had been her job at Catco. Life as Cat Grant’s assistant was tough but rewarding. The familiar comfort of sitting at her desk, planning orders and appointments, scheduling meetings and meeting needs before they even arose had been such a source of joy, of pride. But there was more.

She looked at Cat, evidently lost in thought. She was busy twirling her fingers around the stem of her glass, the olive toothpicks abandoned on the table. Cat’s face was the most relaxed she had seen in a long time, perhaps ever since they met. She noticed her hair, golden and perfect, framing her face like a crown. Her attention was drawn to her lips, lipstick now faded and smudged in the centre, and her heart skipped a beat, suddenly. _Rao. She is beautiful_.

Kara grabbed her glass and downed the remaining liquid in one gulp. She got up from the couch and fumbled with her hands on her face, moving a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Miss Grant, I have to go.”

“Ah… Alright, Kiera, let me call you a car.” Cat spun around and placed a hand on her arm, protectively.

As the fingers wrapped around her, Kara felt heat building up like pressure, her face flushing with colour as her grip on self-control threatened to slip. Cat’s hand burned through the fabric of her cardigan, leaving a mark that would keep burning long after she left the room. She looked straight into Cat’s eyes, a glimmer of longing buried there underneath the concern.

“It’s ok, I- I prefer walking anyway.”

Within a few seconds, Kara was gone, heart thumping furiously in her chest, giving no sign of slowing down.

***

“You know, I never really noticed Clark having to get his rage on.” James walked towards the punching bag, strapping his boxing gloves closed.

“‘Cause he’s a man. Girls are taught to smile and keep it on the inside.” Her response was deadpan and felt almost redundant. James flinched for a second at the simplicity of the rationale.

“Well, it’s not like black men are encouraged to get angry in public.” Naturally, James had a point. If there was ever somebody who could relate to her struggle, it had to be him.

“Well, then this will work for both of us,” she replied with a smile. She removed her glasses and set them aside. Removing the glasses always felt like such a loaded gesture, even more so than donning the cape: it made her instantly feel like Kara was turning into Supergirl.

“Ok then, say what you’re mad about, and then let the fists fly,” Kara dictated as she got into position. A car hung suspended from the ceiling in front of her. _I hope the soundproofing is as solid as it should be in this garage_.

James nodded in agreement and walked to the punching bag. “I can’t stand Lucy’s dad,” he said, taking a few cautious swings.

“Oh, I can’t stand him either.” Kara’s fist hit the hood of the car with a metallic clang. _Boy, that was loud!_

“I hate how he gets involved in our relationship.” A quick left and a right jab at the bag.

“I can’t stand the way Cat treats me.” Kara hit the car again, this time with more force. “I hate how my emotions get the best of me.” Two more punches, the car’s hood now starting to buckle inward. “And I hate how my sister doesn’t know what happened to her father.” Three more punches, the sound now distracting James. “And I hate that I’m never gonna get to have a normal life!” The last punch broke through the metal and pushed part of the engine clattering to the ground, metal screws and bits flying everywhere.

“I’m sorry- I,” Kara started, one hand reflexively raised to her mouth, embarrassed at her display of fury. “I know this is why we’re here, but-”

“Kara, that’s ok,” James interrupted her. “It’s obvious you have stuff you need to work through.”

“I guess Cat was right. There is anger behind the anger.” Kara thought back to the past few days, to everything that happened since she decided to wear the mark of the House of El on her chest. She was so sure that becoming Supergirl, finally letting the world see her for who she was, was going give meaning to her life, make her feel normal. _It works for Clark. How can that not be enough for me?_

Kara’s head throbbed. She could feel her own heart bringing heat to her face and limbs in waves, vision tinted by rushes of waxing and waning saturation.

Some pieces of the puzzle were finally starting to slot into place.

Her normal life ended the second her parents put her in that pod and sent her off towards another planet.

Kara would never feel normal.


	3. I think I might have reached my midlife crisis

"Do me a favour and take off your glasses" Cat’s voice was blunt, uncompromising. There was no hint of patience in the request.

"My glass… I… I can’t! I’d be blind without them!"

"I doubt that." As far as clumsy attempts at concealing agitation went, this was pretty bad, even for Kara’s standards, and Cat wasn’t about to be deterred by such a weak excuse. “If you’re not who I think you are, what does that matter?”

"Miss Grant, I…"

"Glasses, or I take it as a confirmation"

Kara’s cheerful smile died at that, and she took a deep breath, then turned to the side. _Why did she do that? Why turn away from me to remove her glasses?_ Cat watched Kara look at her, lenses in one hand, every last shred of confidence frayed and torn.

And just like that, as their eyes met, unencumbered by worthless disguise, Cat saw the truth. With her gaze, she traced the small scar between the eyebrows, the round golden earrings, the unmistakable jawline, lips full and slightly trembling, collarbones, visible from the open shirt, and underneath all that, the brazen heart of a hero.

It was all pretty obvious in retrospect. All those times when Kara would mysteriously disappear from the office while Supergirl was busy preventing a train wreck or pulling survivors out of a collapsed building. The way she took it personally when Cat named her "Supergirl". How rather than standing around uselessly as Kara, she had changed into her cape and costume to protect her from Livewire. Slowly but surely it was starting to make sense how Kara had become the best assistant she ever had… with her _alien superpowers_.

Kara looked less like Supergirl now, and more like a hybrid between the two, possibly the closest thing to her true self. This must be the true Kara Danvers (was that even her real name?), not the cheerful millennial she thought she hired as her assistant, not the costumed hero that vowed to protect the citizens of National City.

In a way, it was a relief to see her suspicions confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt. But there, behind the elation for _having been right_ lay in ambush the disappointment. Kara hadn’t told her anything and she was likely going to deny it all. The intimacy she thought they gained was getting strained under the weight of this pretence.

_Did her parents really die in a fire? Does she even have a sister? God knows how many other things she’s lying to me about._ But then Cat realised that it was not like Kara to _lie_. Despite the obvious fact that she hid her alter-ego from her, Cat did not believe the younger woman’s intent was to deceive her.

She looked at Kara’s skin, it was almost glowing in the pale light. She imagined touching it, pinching it, scraping it with her nails. It was bulletproof. Cat wondered what it felt like, to be practically impervious to physical harm and yet look so damn _vulnerable_.

So this was her secret, Cat reflected, the unspeakable fact Kara was trying her best to hide. Not her secret identity, but that underneath her blinding joyful smile, stripped of her superhero costume, she was a* just a girl*, a refugee from a different galaxy, witness to god knows what awful series of events that brought her to this planet.

"Well, let me begin by saying thank you, for all the help that you’ve given me. _Supergirl_ " Cat raised her glass, tried her best to use her reassuring smile, not wanting to perturb the balance between them. And as Kara prepared to speak, as she took a deep breath, chest filling with air and expectation, a small amount of courage, she figured, gathered in the gesture, the girl’s phone rang.

The spell was broken, the urge she saw glimmer in her eyes now yanked from her expression as Kara shook herself out of the trance.

"Excuse me, I have to-" she managed to sputter.

"No, I’m sure it’s very important." Cat conceded “You should go.”

***

"Alex, we have a huge problem." Kara stepped inside the office, heart beating in her chest like a crazed animal rattling its cage.

"Lord Technologies is under attack," Alex stated clearly, her professional mode fully engaged.

"Ok, we have two huge problems."

"Can yours wait until we deal with-"

"Yes, yes it can wait," Kara hissed. “I’ll talk to you after I’ve handled the attackers.”

"Alright. Danvers out."

It was only several punches, a hole in the ceiling of the Lord Technologies lobby, and a flying fistfight later that Kara managed to find a moment to speak to her sister.

"So? What is it?" Alex pushed open the glass door of the armoury and walked in, assault rifle in hand, searching for a case in which to stash the firearm.

"Uh, well!" Kara smiled, awkwardly trying to hide her agitation. “Cat Grant thinks I’m Supergirl.”

"Huh." Alex smiled herself, incredulous. “What did you do this time?”

"I- Nothing! She’s a reporter, she’s smart, she figured it out!"

Alex eyed her, renewed scepticism radiating from her expression. "Really? She just… figured it out? No misstep whatsoever on your part."

"Well, there were… circumstances- the whole thing with Livewire for instance, she found that a bit suspicious, and, and- during the earthquake when I got sick and Supergirl was missing..."

"Still, she doesn’t have any real proof does she?"

"She, um… she made me take off my glasses."

Alex couldn’t resist laughing out loud at that. Her sister, clad in a tight superhero costume, was evidently squirming at the memory of that moment, one hand raised to her face to reposition lenses that weren’t there.

"Don’t mock me!" she squealed. “You know how hard it is-”

"I know, I know." Alex lowered her head, cooling her amusement. “So, what did she say? When she saw you without your glasses, I mean.”

"She… nothing, not at first. She just… stared at me." Kara sighed deeply, the recollection shaking her with renewed force. “She looked right through me, Alex… She was peeling back all the layers of my cover until I felt so naked, I just couldn’t bear it.” A shiver ran down her spine, the memory of Cat’s hazel eyes still vivid when she closed her own.

"She thanked me…" Kara continued, reliving the scene in her head: the heartbeat drumming in her ears, droning and buzzing, the cone of her vision shrinking into a tunnel, her sight wavering between x-ray and normal, blue and white and transparent, pulsating, sharp and painful. “I’ve never wanted to kiss anybody so bad in my entire life.”

"Wait, what?" Alex took a step forward, placing a hand on her sister’s arm. “Kara, what are you saying?”

"I don’t know what I’m saying!" Kara recoiled from the touch and crossed her arms over her chest, frowning. “All I know is… at that moment, when she looked at me like that... Rao, I wanted to kiss her. I don’t know what it means! Frankly, I haven’t had a lot of time to reflect on it, what with Non and Astra and the whole Hank being abducted-”

"Don’t change the subject," Alex admonished her.

"I’m not! I’m just… This is new to me, Alex. I know I care about her, and she certainly cares about me, but… wanting to kiss her? Unexplored territory. Not to mention, monumentally bad idea."

"Oh, well, I’m right with you there. Cat Grant? The queen of all media? Not to mention your boss-"

"I know, I know, it really just caught me by surprise. I’m sure it’s nothing serious." Kara turned away from her sister in an effort of regaining composure.

"Well! It better be!" Alex snorted, clapping the rifle case closed.

_It’s nothing serious_ , Kara repeated in her head, fists clenched in tension. _I will forget about this in no time_. _I was nervous and surprised about Cat threatening to reveal my identity. I felt exposed and I panicked, that’s all._ She had always been a terrible liar, the subtleties of social interaction still eluding her so many years after landing on Earth, but apparently she could lie to herself just fine.

***

Cat fumbled with her hands in the inner pocket of her coat, trying to fish out her apartment’s ID badge. She flipped the small card in her fingers and pressed it against the plastic reader on the side of the door. An LED light flashed green after a few seconds, and she mechanically stepped forward to push the front door open by leaning on it with an open palm. She glanced at the room in front of her and sighed.* At least Carter’s not home*, a small comfort.

Her head felt heavy; she started drinking early today, and the city lights filtering from the shades were the only light she could suffer at the moment. She stepped clumsily out of her heels, steadying herself on the back of the couch, and took a deep breath, trying to put together the events of the evening.

At first, she thought she just needed a little courage. After the first dinner with Adam had ended in disaster, she realised it would be irresponsible to try to approach this one sober. Then Kara had sat there, all pleased and smiling, so selflessly happy for reconciling a mother with her long-lost son. And Adam. Oh, Adam. Who she thought she would never get to meet. Staring into his eyes and seeing regret and affection had been a stab in the heart. No, after an evening of that, there was no alternative but to head straight for the hard stuff.

She lowered herself on the armchair facing the tv and leant towards her purse to fish out her phone. Wincing slightly at the sudden light emanating from the screen, she managed to unlock it and open the contacts app. _Linda… Linda… there she is_.

It rang several times before a rumpled voice came through the other end of the line.

"Hello?" She sounded distant and strained, as if coming from the other end of a long alleyway.

"Linda! There you are. Good. You’re awake." She moved the phone, resting between her ear and shoulder, to her hand and held it out in front of her to press the speakerphone button.

"Jesus Christ, Cat, do you have any idea how late it is?" Linda did not sound amused.

"Listen, there is a reason why I pay the platinum rate. Let’s just say it’s not for your impeccable discretion."

"Come on, I had nothing to do with-"

"This is an emergency." Cat cut her off. She took a deep breath, leaning forward towards the ottoman in front of her. “I…” she began. The words, so clear in her mind up until that moment, now lay muddled and blurred, beyond reach. Eyes closed, she lowered her face onto her hands, surprised by how cool they felt against her burning cheeks.

"Cat?"

"I think I might have reached my midlife crisis," she blurted out, drained.

"Wait a minute, have you been drinking?"

"Seriously? Linda, you’ve known me for years. When have I _not_ been drinking? At any rate… I can function perfectly well with a few glasses of bourbon in me. This is not about drinking. I mean, it is, but it’s mostly about Kara."

"Your assistant? What about her?"

"I opened up to her… I… talked to her about my mother, and about Adam, how I thought my biggest regret was not having had him in my life. You know the letters I have been writing to him? The ones I was never going to send?"

"Yes…"

"Well, she finished one of them for me." Cat scoffed, her chest still aching a little at the thought. “The thing that hurts the most is that she managed to express my feelings so clearly. She found the perfect words, and in response, he showed up at my office.”

"Oh my." Linda couldn’t quite hide her surprise. “How did that go?”

"How do you _think_? I fucked up. I invited him to dinner, and I spent the whole time talking about myself, filling the emotional void in the conversation with my tried and true entertainment techniques. It was Kara who convinced him to try a second time. God, that girl."

"So you did see him a second time..." prompted Linda.

"Yes, and Kara was there with us. She helped us bring our feelings forward, mediated the encounter a little. I told Adam I was sorry and how I missed not having been there for him when he grew up. I am so proud of the man he-" Cat swallowed a sob, a single tear sliding down her cheek.

"Take your time, dear."

"I am absolutely head over heels about this, Linda. I mean, if it hadn’t been for her, I would still be stuck pretending to manage my regret by writing letters to a son I never met. But..."

"Yes?"

Cat cradled her head in her hands, rubbing her eyebrows. She pictured Kara’s angelic face, those piercing blue eyes, that lovely look she got, eager and waiting, while Cat spoke to Adam. "I think I might be falling for her."

"Oh," Linda managed to say after a few seconds of silence. Cat heard a rustling sound on the other end of the call. Presumably, Linda was sitting up in her bed. Cat could almost see her grabbing her spectacles, perching them on her nose, nostrils flared in a hint of disappointment. “Well, that… complicates things.”

"That it does. She’s young, Linda. She’s half my age. She’s sweet and trusting and oh so naive. Not to mention clearly straight. You should have seen her drooling all over the new art director I managed to steal from the Planet."

"And how long has this been going on?"

"I don’t know, I… I suppose a long time? It just never seemed so clear until tonight. She just looked at me, I was so emotional, and I… guess I got lost in there."

"I see."

"And I mean, picture this, just imagine, even if for some* insane miracle _she reciprocated whatever I… just think of what my mother would say._ Oh Kitty, sleeping with the help? How distasteful.*" The very act of depicting her mother’s point of view, even in mockery, caused Cat instant discomfort. “What can I do about this? I mean, I can’t let anything happen between us.”

"Hmm. Is that something you are genuinely interested in? Something happening between the two of you, I mean-"

"I… Yes, but, it seems a little beside the point, doesn’t it? I would never want to take advantage of her."

"Hmm," Linda pondered out loud. “It seems to me you have a couple of choices here. You could ignore all of this, which I’m sure would be your preferred option, but one that I cannot bring myself to professionally recommend.” She cleared her throat, her voice straightening a little. “You could move her to a different position, transfer her to another CatCo location, out of sight, out of mind, so to speak… or, and I think you shouldn’t disregard this option, you could try figuring out if she is interested in you. You are a strong, attractive woman, Cat. If this girl managed to endure at your side for over two years, I am sure she is not completely immune to your charm.”

Cat’s first instinct was to scream "nonsense!" (or, rather, a not-so-polite alternative of that), but she bit her lip and forced herself to consider her current predicament. The more she let the possibility linger at the vanguard of her thoughts, the more time the poisonous idea had to sediment, infect, and spread.

_What’s the harm_ , she chanced, _in doing a little experiment?_

"Thank you, Linda. You’ve been a great help."

"Uh, alright. I’d say anytime, but at this point, I’m starting to worry you’d take me up on that literally."

"Good night, Linda." She could hear the smile in her own voice as she said this, a sly, hungry grin that was stretching her lips, weaving her hope and desire into inevitability.

"Good night, Cat."

***

Kara loved flying above the city at dawn. Early in the morning, the air had a particular quality to it, a smell of newness, the day's new light painting perfect pink streaks on the horizon. Flying was just about the only thing that calmed her down when her anxiety got bad. She would soar above the clouds and let the warmth of the sun wash over her like molten honey. She would flip and twirl and shoot upwards and let herself drop into free fall, only to pick up speed after a few seconds.

_What a mess!_ Her thoughts resonated loud enough even as she concentrated all her energy on flying, cape flapping rhythmically in the air behind her, such a comforting sound. _Why would you date the son of the woman you seem to have feelings for? That’s a recipe for disaster if I’ve ever seen one._

The truth was, of course, that Adam caught her by surprise. Still giddy with delight for the night out with him and Miss Grant, she was eager to please, to agree to anything to get the two of them into a positive, harmonious mood. She was so blind to his advances that when he mentioned Korean Barbecue, her first thought had been, " _Oh no! Miss Grant would totally hate that!_ " So utterly focused on Cat, her happiness, her satisfaction with her son, Kara had no idea Adam was even into her.

And the thing was, she reflected as she took a slow banking turn towards National City’s beach, she had always been terrible at telling when guys were hitting on her. Throughout her university years, there had been countless situations where her usual Sunny Danvers persona had allowed her to befriend classmates, bartenders, and TAs, only to disappointingly find out that their chief concern was getting her drunk or getting into her pants (often both). In the rare occasions where she agreed to let them get intimate with her, she never truly felt like she could relax, like she had a grip on her feelings and she was safe to express herself. She wondered whether she was capable of feelings at all, seeing as all she found in those encounters had been awkward sweaty afternoons and the urge to break a nose or two.

Kara often fantasised about what her life would have been like back on Krypton. Would she have had many suitors on her home planet? Would she be already married at this age? Would she want any sons or daughters? What names would she choose? Naturally, these daydreams ended in a pang of disappointment for a life missed, a parallel existence in which her clumsiness and frustration were but a distant worry.

Down on Earth, however, Kara’s questions were more tied to the near future and her appointment with Adam. He was an attractive young man, and in these last few days, she had a chance to discover his sweet and caring side as he opened up to the vulnerability of growing up without a mother and subsequently finding that mother to be the icy, unreachable Cat Grant.

_It can’t be that bad,_ she figured. _Maybe this is an opportunity to get closer to her. Dating her son gives me plenty of opportunities to spend more time by her side, maybe get to see her house. Perhaps she could invite us to dinner at her place, like a family gathering of sorts. We would eat together, have fun, maybe drink some nice wine, and her cheeks would get rosy and flushed like they do when she’s had a glass or two, and her lips would glisten, and if only I could get close enough to…_ Kara shook her head violently, rousing herself from the reverie.

"Oh this is bad," she hissed, suddenly short of breath. “This is very very bad.”


	4. Nobody gets hurt

Kara going out with her son. It was perfect, really. She could relax at the fact that her gorgeous, charming assistant was not interested in her, while at the same time keeping Adam close enough that she would not miss him too much.

Boy had that dream shattered quickly! When Kara came back to the office after being kidnapped by Bizarro, Cat eagerly conceded her office for them to continue whatever the sudden crisis had interrupted. Seeing Adam’s face as he stormed from the building a few minutes later had confirmed her projection that their relationship was dead on arrival.

The memory of the previous evening made her wince, the amount of pain this generated startling her. Her eyes felt a couple of sizes too large for their sockets. She tried to burrow further into her comfy desk chair, but her body would just not merge with the seat’s padding no matter how hard she pushed back against it. She stared at her laptop’s screen: it showed nothing but her desktop background, devoid of any and all icons. She had hoped working on her computer would give off the impression that she was alert, in control as opposed to sorely and quite unexpectedly hungover.

Just a few nights ago, she had been ready to make her move, and as she gathered up the courage, as she knitted her words into a solid strategy, her son, Adam, had swooped in and asked Kara out on a date. Her long lost, estranged son. How could she blame him? Who wouldn’t be blinded, charmed by Kara’s sweet smile, her impeccable manners, her fearless honesty? And most of all, how could she blame _him_? She had taken so much from his life, it was her turn to let him have this one; he deserved it.

It did not come as a surprise, of course, that Kara and Adam were not the ideal couple she fantasised them to be. The awkward not-quite-a-kiss-but-a-hug they shared in her presence was fairly unambiguous, and yet she had hoped against hope, twisting the events in her head, that they would deliver her from her burden, from the bitter, distressing truth that a crush on your young blonde assistant was not something a fifty-year-old woman could afford to indulge.

And so she made up her mind. She figured that, if she couldn’t fight the urge to stare at Kara’s beautifully toned legs as she walked up and down her office, she could at the very least drive a wedge between them, so as to minimise temptation. She was just protecting herself, she lied. It was for everybody’s sake, she promised.

She picked the top résumé from the pile marked “potential assistants,” a stack she had been neglecting for a long time as she became used to Kara sticking around, and she stared dully at the lines printed on the paper. _Siobhan Smythe_ , written in a clear, elegant typeface. _Well, Siobhan, it appears it is your lucky day,_ she reflected as she fired a quick email to the recruitment department, informing them she would be needing a contract drafted and an additional desk.

Letting Kara get so close to her had been a mistake, this much was now clear. After her failed experiment with Adam, Kara had had the nerve to show up at her office and try to somehow justify herself. Cat would hear none of her excuses. “I don’t want to know,” she had stated in an uncompromising tone when Kara tried to confess. “In fact, from this moment on, I think our relationship should be strictly professional. Boss, Employee. That way everything is very clear, nobody gets confused, nobody gets hurt.”

Cat figured that last part would be interpreted as being about Adam, but her chest ached as she said it, and as safe as she felt hidden in her mask of concern for her poor, lovestruck son, a small part of her wished Kara would read it as an admission of her own feelings. She wished she could stand up and yell at her, take her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. _“I was ready to give you up, Kara!”_ she would say. _“I was ready to put my silly little infatuation behind us. But you just wouldn’t go. And now, I have no choice but to push you away.”_

“Of course, if that’s what you want...” Kara had replied calmly a few seconds after she had stopped speaking. Without adding anything else, she turned on her heels and walked away.

Cat pretended not to stare as her assistant left the room, the urge to look at her strong enough to choke all the witty replies in her throat.

If her pulsating headache was an indication of the guilt she felt, she reasoned, it was probably for the best. Better to call it that than to admit it had taken her more than the average dose of alcohol and pills to get any sleep lately.

***

Kara walked into the brightly lit fighting room, one step after the other banging heavily on the metal floor. She was livid. As the kryptonite-laden air entered her lungs, she felt the rage easing into a dull ache. Slowly, the nausea settled in her chest. She took a few deep breaths, eyes closed, and then opened them again, looking straight at the other girl in the room.

Alex stood there with arms crossed, smirking at her. "Heavy day at the office, Keira?"

Instead of replying, Kara settled in her fighting stance, raising her fists. Before Alex had time to react, Kara was charging at her with incredible speed. "She," _*straight jab*_ "...hired," _*sidestep, dodge*_ "...a replacement!" _*left wound, upper-hook*_.

Alex retreated a couple of steps, blinking, confused. "She what?"

Kara rushed her once more, stopping a split second before reaching her, and changed direction, trying to grab her from the side in a judo grip. Alex was faster though, and twisted her arm, leveraging her opponent's strength to flip her onto the mat.

Kara groaned loudly, frustrated. "She hired a replacement. For me." Alex pinned her with her knee to the ground, holding her arm behind her back.

"Uh, just to be clear, who are we talking about here?"

"Cat! I mean, Cat Grant, my boss. She hired a new assistant. Siobhan. She named me number two. Am I a number two Alex? Did I come out of the damn closet and start flying around town saving snakes stuck in trees… to be called number two?" Kara banged her head against the mat, and turned sharply, breaking her sister's grip.

“To be fair, she doesn’t officially know that was you-”

"Fucking hell, Alex. You know what reason she gave for this?"

"No, Kara, enlighten me."

“She said that my job was beginning to strain my abilities!” Kara took a deep breath, trying to steady the thundering rage currently sending her body into overdrive. “I have given one hundred and ten percent to this job, Alex. I have gone _above and fucking beyond_ , all of this to be cast aside for a stuck up fucking brunette who dazzles her with _hand pressed coffee_ made with _beans growing in the shade of guava trees_ in whatever fucking country coffee beans grow in-”

“Uhm, If I didn’t know any better, Kara, I’d say you were jealous.”

“Ugh!” Kara grunted, her shoulders slumping slightly. “You’re right, as always.” She sighed once more, utterly defeated.  “I am jealous. Ever since Cat kicked me out of her personal life, I haven’t been able to think straight. And then this little _miss perfection_ shows up, and Cat only has eyes for her… Well, no shit I went green with spite.” Kara looked down, ashamed at her own thoughts.

Alex stepped closer to her, placing her hands comfortingly on either side of Kara’s tense body. “Don’t get so worked up about this, though. I know things with Cat did not go as you hoped, but-”

“But what? Don’t lose hope? Or maybe yeah, try to move on? I am not a child Alex, I know how to deal with my feelings.”

“I’m just saying, this obviously affects you, and… I just hate to see you like this is all.”

“Well, I hate to lose my temper like this.” Once the momentum of rage hand ground to a halt, Kara found herself panting with exhaustion, her life energy drained as much by the Kryptonite as it was by dragging her feelings out in the open like that. She imagined this was how people felt like after throwing up, hollowed out and raw, feeling bits and pieces of her insides aching in places so deep inside her, she had trouble placing the sensation.

“Let’s go, Alex.” Kara headed for the exit, one small fatigued step after another. “I want to go drown in a sea of ice cream.”

***

It was the ringing that woke her. Cat opened her eyes tentatively, trying to find her bearings and locate the source of the noise. She had been pulled out of a dream that was all trees. There were trees around her and trees in front of her as far as the eye could see. She remembered the feeling of the moss on her bare feet as she walked, an eerie light illuminating the area around her. She remembered the smell of grass, wet and muddy, filling her with a sense of urgency, like a primordial desperation, a feral drive to crouch and hide and seek refuge. Even now that she had been wrenched away from that space, awake, she couldn’t shake the anxiety.

During the last few weeks, she had gotten accustomed to waking up in places that were not her bed. She had dozed off on the leather armchair in the corner of the living room a couple of times, face pressed against the backrest, feet curled up against the seat. She had sneaked to the guest room to cry. It was the furthest room away from Carter’s; it helped to know he was not likely to hear her when her sobs got too loud for the pillows to stifle properly.

She massaged her brow and opened her eyes again. _The office_ , she thought, tracing the sleep lines left by the pillow on her cheek. _And I drooled on the couch. Great._

Still searching for her phone, she looked around the room and found that it lay face down on the carpet next to her feet. She felt the device vibrate softly as she picked it up and swiped to take the call.

“Cat?” Linda’s voice was strangely high pitched. Cat guessed this was what tension sounded like on her. “You missed our appointment. Are you ok?”

“I… uh... did I forget to reschedule?”

“You did, yes.”

Cat breathed in the awkward silence. Neither woman was speaking, but Cat chose not follow up on the cue. She hadn’t quite made it back from the forest. It happened at times, that she woke from a dream but still felt like she hadn’t abandoned it completely. It was a disorienting sensation to all of a sudden be called upon to shed all the priorities and worries that the dream world dictated. She would struggle to shake the compulsion to find _that particular photograph_ , dive with her fingers in pockets, scraping the inner lining of her clothing, opening and closing drawers and rummaging in her purse, an object that may have never existed. It felt like having a word constantly on the tip of her tongue, but absolutely nothing to say.

In the end, Linda broke the silence. “I have known you for twenty years, Cat. You have never missed an appointment. I am legitimately concerned.”

“It was bound to happen someday.” She tried being coy, but the effort required to sound convincing seemed insurmountable. Lying to Linda had never been an easy feat. It was part of why she had kept going back to her, week after week.

“Don’t deflect.”

“I’m not. Listen, I… You’re right, why don’t we make a new appointment?”

“I have an opening in half an hour, if you can make it. I can squeeze you in before my other patients.”

Cat glanced at the window behind her. The sickly, grey light of dawn greeted her from beyond the balcony. _Ugh, did I stay here all night?_

“Yes, ok, I’ll be there.”

“Perfect. See you soon.”

Cat terminated the call and placed the phone on the coffee table in front of her, her attention falling to the other objects there, vestigial clues of the previous evening’s events. There was the obligatory tumbler along with its accompanying empty glass decanter. An open bottle of Lexapro, from which she hoped not too many pills were missing. What worried her was the third item: a small black coin purse, its leather supple and shiny, well worn. She closed her eyes and traced the ridges of the zipper’s teeth with her fingers, trying to recall the memory connected to it. She could swear that the last time she had seen the leather pouch, it was carefully hidden in the back of the wall safe. And yet, here it was, right in front of her.


	5. Virginia Slim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to @fictorium for beta-ing this chapter <3

“So, are we just going to pretend that this isn’t a big deal?” Alex handed her sister a mug of coffee, plenty of sugar and cream added, already stirred.

Kara accepted the offer and took a sip, not bothering to check the temperature. After all, no coffee had ever been too hot for Kara Danvers. She contemplated playing dumb, pretending not to know what _big deal_ Alex was referring to, but decided against it. She stared at her cup in silence, instead, trying to sort out her thoughts.

“Kara, come on…” Alex nudged her, opening the box of pastries and pushing it in her direction “you know you can talk to me about anything”

_It’s not really a big deal,_ she considered _, or rather it shouldn’t be_. _I’ve always known I was attracted to people regardless of their gender, that kind of distinction is not even relevant on Krypton, I just… I’m not even sure I am ready to have this discussion._

“But see, there is nothing to talk about, I-” Kara glanced at her sister, her trademark sceptical look advising her to change course.

Before she could find a suitable reply, Alex decided to interject. “Listen, you’ve been acting strange ever since you told me about Cat.” Kara started to respond but Alex raised a hand, asking that she let her finish. “You’ve told me you liked her, that you wanted to kiss her… and you _left it at that_! You’ve been avoiding this conversation ever since you let that slip and all I have is questions. Will you just _please_ stop pretending that this isn’t at least a little bit confusing?”

Alex took a deep breath, calming herself “Is this… does this mean you’re gay? Because that’s fine if you-”

“No!” Kara cut her off. “I’m not _gay_ ”

“Then, well-”

“The thing is, I’m not sure I entirely understand what I’m feeling.” Kara broke off a piece of the pastry and stuffed in her mouth, something akin to forced nonchalance. “I know I’m safe with you, that I can open up.” Kara looked down at her fingers again: her hands were sticky from the powdered sugar of the cruller she’d been tearing to pieces. “I guess I’m just not used to letting it all out, saying things so clearly.”

“But you do like Cat, as in _like_ like?”

“I do, yes. But here’s where things get complicated. Up until a few months ago, I was used to keeping _everything_ inside at all times. Whenever I felt something, let’s say _out the ordinary_ or that I didn’t feel was _normal_ , I’d just… you know, sweep it under the rug.”

“I have spent the better part of my life cutting off parts of me and hiding them from other people. I could afford the luxury of denying everything, because nobody could ever find out about the true me. I used to think: _what’s one more lie?_ _One more piece added to the pile of secrets?_ ”

“But then when I was affected by the red kryptonite… all the barriers I’ve been putting up these years... everything was blurred. I realised _something_ was pulling me to her. Something that, in a twisted way, came out as showing off my strength, making clear how much I _don’t_ need her. I hurt her Alex. I could’ve killed her. It scared the shit out of me.”

Kara twisted her hands, jittery and nervous. She took a sip of coffee, at a loss for something to do with her body, then continued “Alex please realise, that once you start living like this… it’s not easy to separate what you really feel, what you _want_ , deep down, from the myriad of expectations, from the narrative of who you _need_ to be to survive.”

Alex stood there silent, braced against the kitchen island, looking at her sister with eyes full of understanding, a small smile, a silent nod of acceptance.

“Alright, I hear you, things are confusing,” Alex started, stepping around the counter and towards her sister, then grabbed her hand and held it gently between her own. “But I want you to know that I love you no matter _what_ and that I’m here for you, to support you in this… _whatever this is_ , ok?”

“Thank you. It means a lot to hear that.” Kara smiled, shyly at first, then expanding into a larger, more luminous smile. “And just to be clear, _not gay_. If I had to pick a label, which I’m not sure I’m comfortable doing, I’d say I’m more bi? Or pan?” she waved her hand in front of her face, gesturing doubt, adjusted her glasses “I guess I always just felt attracted to _people_.”

“Hey! That’s cool. I guess I never realised Cat Grant counted as a person.” Alex joked. “An evil queen maybe, but a _person_?”

Kara looked at her, mocking bewilderment “Alexandra Danvers! How _dare_ you speak like that about the woman I love!” And before she fully realised it the words had tumbled out of her, as if of their own accord. Kara’s eyes widened in shock, the revelation hanging in the air between them, as it got harder and harder for her to breathe.

***

During the ride uptown, Cat was restless. She barely had enough time to stop by her house for a change of clothes before she had to dash back to the town car where Francis, her driver, was waiting for her. So early in the morning, the commuter traffic was not yet a nuisance - there was no chance to use it as an excuse for her tardiness. She urged Francis to drive faster. There was such a thing as being unfashionably late, after all.

“Please, take a seat,” Linda prompted once she saw Cat hovering at the door to her office.

Cat lowered herself on the armchair opposite Linda’s desk and relaxed a little, having arrived no later than the agreed upon time. She took a look at the room, as if noticing certain details for the first time. The decor was noticeably different from her own baroque taste. Linda’s furniture was a rich brown, an almost black colour, _perhaps Bois de Rose?_ There was a large rubber plant in the corner, next to a window that covered the entire wall of the room. The blinds were open, and she could see the garden from where she was sitting. Green, lush, and quiet.

“So, Cat, how are you doing?”

“How am I doing?” Cat scoffed, having regained some of her spirits after the rough start of her morning. “I’m fine, and when I’m not, the pills help.”

“Listen, I’m not trying to be antagonistic here. But I feel like things have taken a turn for the worse lately. I would even venture that you are reverting to patterns of behaviour that I considered past us. Am I wrong?”

Cat was silent for a minute at that. Her first instinct was to deny the accusations, but as it often happened in such occasions, her pragmatism got the best of her. Linda was a professional, a friend even. Perhaps she could help.

“No, Linda, you’re right. I am not ok,” Cat volunteered. It was not much, but it was a start. “I had to fire my assistant.”

“Kara? The one you said-”

“No, not her.” Cat dismissed the idea quickly, reinforcing it with a flick of her wrist. “The other one. Siobhan. She tried to con me. Twice.”

“You know I was opposed to you hiring that second girl anyway. Good riddance.”

“Yes, all in all, we are not much further now than where I was before hiring her, but that is precisely the point.”

Linda made a hand gesture, prompting her to elaborate.

“Well, Kara is my only assistant now. _Kara_ , who I feel like I should avoid as much as possible if there is any hope for me to keep my sanity. It feels like an itch that I cannot scratch because I am too busy convincing myself there is no itch. Then before I know it, I’m on my fifth glass of bourbon, and I have to hide my phone for fear of giving up and calling her...” Cat trailed off, a hand on her eyebrow massaging the ghost of an ache, perhaps the beginning of a migraine.

“Whatever happened to trying to find out if she was interested in you?”

And all of a sudden she remembered _the fall_ , cringing at the memory of the mind-numbing terror; how Supergirl stared at her with those piercing blue eyes overflowing with spite and said “ _Don’t ever call me again”_.

Cat knew it hadn’t been _really_ her; Supergirl said as much herself when she came to apologise. But Cat couldn’t help but feel that there had been some truth to her behaviour that night. Whatever had been affecting her, it simply revealed a part of her that was normally suppressed. Just as Kara had showed up at work in that daring outfit, used her private elevator to get her coffee. _Brazen_ , but not entirely out of character.

As much as she trusted Linda, she couldn’t tell her any of this, so she attempted some generic deflection. “Well, Adam happened, didn’t he? He showed up on his white horse and batted his eyelashes and yes, _yes_ I know they only dated for about five minutes, but it made me realise just how silly it is to pursue a girl, a woman my son’s age, one who is clearly more interested in James Olsen than in me.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

“Like having another drink,” Cat replied grimly.

Linda glanced at her with preoccupation, lowering her glasses, the chain on her neck rattling. “Is that _all_ you’ve been doing about it?”

Cat’s chest tightened for a second, the memory of the leather purse jumping at the forefront of her thought. “Yes, that’s… that’s all.” It was not a lie if she couldn’t remember otherwise.

“Oh, what an utter _idiot.”_ Linda slammed her palm on the heavy wooden desk, the sound somewhat dulled by the heft of the surface, but it still startled her. “I meant to ask you about your run in with Supergirl! I saw on the news she _tossed you from your own balcony_. My, you must’ve been terrified.” Linda sat forward in her chair, eyeing her expectantly, brand new worry showing on the lines of her face.

Cat thought of how she had felt while in freefall, after Kara had thrown her from her office’s balcony. There was a certain peace to it. Between the screams, an inevitability: the blinding panic of impending death. For a second there, the ground approaching at absurd speed had seemed like a welcome escape from her current conundrum. Then those strong arms had caught her and _oh_ how she had wanted to die right then and there.

Kara had set her down on the asphalt, gently even, and Cat had stared up at her face, mystified at the unrestrained display of power. Once again smitten.

“Do you know why she came after you?” Linda prompted with obvious curiosity on her part, amid the worry.

“I called her. I mean, I asked James Olsen to relay a message to her that she should come see me.”

“Oh?”

“I knew something was wrong. I thought… she’d listen to me. That I could make her see reason.” Cat admitted. _I thought I had power over her. I was wrong._ “Regardless, I wasn’t hurt, not really. Only my pride a little.” Downplaying was perhaps the smartest move at this point.

“Besides, she came to apologise, once she recovered her sanity. We’re back on good terms now.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

Cat’s thoughts wandered again to the the previous night, the knot that gripped her stomach as she saw the familiar figure on her balcony; how she had clutched her glass, knuckles tight and almost white as she glanced at Kara, clad in the superhero costume.

The paralysis, invisible from outside, slowly thawed as Kara expressed her sorrow, weaved a story, but most of all bared her heart: she was scared she wouldn’t be able to gain back the public’s trust, the trust Cat had placed in her.

_“Can I just sit here for a little while?”_ Kara asked, and when Cat saw those eyes, begging for forgiveness, a benevolent silence, she couldn’t but give in, capitulate to the heartbreaking frenzy they caused in her.

_“Of course,”_ came her reply, not a moment too soon.

Both of them stood in the light wind, staring not at each other, but at the city lights, alive in the distance. Every heartbeat marked the passage of time, as minutes and minutes trickled by, not a single word was uttered between them.

Naturally Kara earned her forgiveness right from the start, when it had become clear that the previous day she hadn’t quite been herself. Rebuilding trust however, was a more complicated endeavour.

Cat and the young superhero were entangled in a pact of elective ignorance. Cat chose to ignore that her pretty young assistant liked to wear a cape and rescue citizens in need, while Kara was determined to maintain the fiction that a ponytail and a pair of glasses were an adequate disguise.

Neither of them seemed under the illusion that the pact was in any way sustainable, yet it provided a steady stream of comfort. Both parties relished in keeping the mystery, tiptoe around the subject and wallow in the deep swamps of self-deception, all for the sake of not upsetting the balance.

_Now, what would happen if we broke the spell?_ Cat wondered _. If one of us came forward and said “I’m onto you”?_ Part of her knew that the balance was carefully designed to minimise the hurt, negate the chances of rejection. Yet, exposing the secret could possibly lead them to develop trust, become _close_.

Denial meant keeping Schrödinger's cat alive indefinitely, as nobody could prove its death.

The more she thought about the impasse, the more something of the situation nagged at her. All this time she had thought their deadlock irresolvable: they’d go on pretending and ignoring, staring at the night in silence, sharing these intimate moments but never getting quite so close as to touch.

Then, all at once, it hit her: Kara had made a big mistake, she admitted that whatever had taken a hold of her that day, brought parts of _herself_ out. That _fire_ in Kara’s eyes, the way she had toyed with her life, it was real. And Cat wanted it back. She wanted nothing more than to close her fingers around it and choke it into submission.

***

When Kara walked into the bullpen, the room was dark, all the other CatCo employees already gone for the night. Ordinarily, she would hear the rhythmic clicking of a mechanical keyboard, a clear sign that Winn was still at his desk, but tonight, no sound was upsetting the quiet of the empty office.

She looked towards the balcony and spied the silhouette of Cat leaning on the railing and looking out at the city, a tiny cloud of smoke dissipating into the air beyond her. She took a few more steps towards her boss's office, suddenly wary of disturbing the scene. _Since when does Cat Grant smoke?_ Kara would have noticed right away if she had. It was her job to know these things. _I guess there are still a few things I don't know about her,_ she reflected, approaching the glass doors that lead to the outside.

“Miss Grant, are you...” Cat spun around at the sound.

“Oh, don't you give me that sad puppy look, Keira. Am I what? Indulging in a little guilty pleasure?”

“I just didn't know you smoked, is all,” Kara said in a small voice, dripping with shame.

“I quit after I got pregnant with Carter,” Cat added frankly, “and honestly, you would not believe how normal it was to smoke even just ten years ago. Nowadays, people are so judgmental... It's plain ridiculous.”

“I guess... I just never saw the appeal of it.” Kara was trying her best to avert Cat's gaze, so she stared at her mouth instead. She concentrated on Cat's lips, closing on the slender white filter, puckering a little while she inhaled the smoke, the blazing red tip of the cigarette catching her by surprise. The smoke was tinted blue when she puffed it out. It rippled and swelled in the air before disappearing slowly.

Cat picked up the box-pack from the table and tilted it open with a quick flick of her thumb. She angled it towards Kara, offering.

“I know you're a girl scout at heart, Keira, but it's never too late to be tempted.” Kara laughed at the idea, flashing white teeth, and moved a hand towards her nose to readjust her glasses.

“Thank you, Miss Grant, but no, I don't think so.”

Cat arched an eyebrow, unconvinced, and leant the pack towards her once more. “Take one.” A renewed invite.

Kara will think about this moment later, back at home, and she will be unable to explain what overtook her then, what hidden force moved her right hand towards the cigarette pack, plucking a single Virginia Slim out and setting it on her lips. _It was an order,_ she will muse. _How can I possibly resist Cat telling me to do anything?_ And yet that detail will prove to be the focus of her nascent obsession: once constrained from the dizzying possibility of choice, she felt liberated.

Kara stood on the balcony, petrified by her own actions, while her boss took a few quick steps forward, a tiny hint of a smile on her. Cat was now standing on her toes, flipping the lighter open - one hand cupped to protect the coming flame from wind - and with expert motion (something she might have done hundreds, thousands of times), she bowed the golden Zippo towards her assistant, lighting up for her.

Kara took a slow drag, the sudden heat in her mouth spurring a rush of curiosity, as she tried to discern the quality of it, the taste and glamour of a fire burning so close. For a few seconds, she forgot to exhale, standing there daydreaming, head tilted up towards the sky and the stars. She thought about those fires in the night, distant and dead. And then the reality of just what she was doing hit her. _Get a hold of yourself, Danvers! What the hell?_ Her inner voice urging composure, she straightened up and dared finally to steal a glance towards Cat, who had been observing her with interest.

“Be a dear, Keira, and fetch me the marble ashtray, will you?” Once again, a direct request.

"Yes, Miss Grant," she whispered, moving to hand Cat a large square slab of polished stone where ashes were pooling and the butts of a couple of cigarettes lay discarded.

“So, uhm, I wanted to apologise,” Kara started “the last few days… I haven’t really been myself. I just wanted to make sure you and I were still, you know, ok.”

“Mmh, I see.” Cat made a pensive expression, a finger raised to her lips for dramatic effect. “Can you keep a secret? Oh who are we kidding of course you can’t.” She waved away the thought with a smile. “I’ll tell you anyway”.

Cat looked straight into her eyes, stretching her lips in an almost predatory grin “I haven’t been myself either, these past few days. Something has been keeping me awake at night, distracted by day, and I just can’t shake it.” Kara felt the stare piercing her skin and sting her inside, underneath her careful armour.

“You see, Kiera, I used to have a… let’s say _relationship_ with Leslie, you know, before she started to call herself _Livewire_...”

“What kind of-”

“Not that _kind_ of relationship. I don’t do romance, flowers, _dates_ -” a roll of eyes, an expression of unabashed disgust, “at any rate, you can imagine it did not end well.”

“What happened?” Kara blurted, before she could stop herself.

Cat eyed her with surprise, as if she did not expect Kara to utter a single word before she was done with her story “Well, if you _must know_ , I don’t believe we were looking for the same thing.”

“And what were you looking for?”

“Discipline,” Cat said, articulating the word carefully, as if pronouncing it for a foreigner “Obedience. The willingness to give oneself fully, without reserve. Above all, _trust_.”

“Although it did not live up to my expectations, Leslie and I had a bond, a connection.” Cat paused, took a breath, looked Kara in the eye “I feel like I might be developing a similar sort of attachment for _Supergirl._ ”

And in that moment the trap sprung. As it closed around her ankle, Kara did not feel it bite her flesh, pierce her inviolable hide and bind her limb in place, captured.


	6. A power move

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to up the story's rating to Explicit for this (and well ehm, maybe it could've been Mature, but we're heading there anyway...). Mind the rating change, people! And Enjoy :D

Kara stepped inside her apartment feeling hotter than she ever had. The suit was clinging to her in ways that made her feel sticky, almost uncomfortable in her own skin. She kicked her boots off and shed her costume with a burst of superspeed. Fingers trembling, she turned to close the window and left a trace of wet heat with her hands on the glass pane. She was flushed, slick with sweat: she had been flying faster than usual.

_Inhale, exhale, why is my heart beating so fast?_

_Inhale, exhale, why is it so hard to breathe?_

Standing in her underwear in the living room, she couldn’t find the focus to do anything other than ride out the shock. Words from the conversation she’d just had with Cat echoed in her head: discipline, obedience, trust.

Every time that, in the past, her self control threatened to slip, every time she felt the anger devour her like a black wave, restraint had been the only solace. Now to imagine the relief of granting control of that to someone else... it left her in a heavy daze.

With each breath, her chest tightened more. Something was rousing inside her, progressively uncovered, the crack in her defenses now a gaping hole, swelling and expanding in obscene surges.

 _A cold shower._ As she stood smothered by the heat, the idea of icy water running down her body promised release. She sprinted towards the bathroom and stepped onto the platform, opened the tap all the way, without even bothering to pull the curtain behind her.

Water soaked her hair. Kara clenched her eyes and breathed with her mouth open, facing the jet. She let water flow on her lips, cooling the inside of her mouth. It felt as though her tongue was on fire, bubbles of steam forming on the surface. Water glided over her shoulders and down her spine, where it pooled at the small of her back, drenching the panties she forgot to remove. Water travelled down her chin, flowing past sharp collarbones and hitting her breasts, nipples so hard they were almost painful.

Images of falling to her knees passed through her head. Fingers adjusting a loose hair behind her ear, running on her jaw, grasping her chin. Two luscious, perfect lips, parting, tongue and teeth and mouth moving to form a word: _Supergirl._

Kara braced herself with one hand on the tiles, gasping for air, flustered, as the other hand moved to her stomach and under the elastic band of her underwear; it brushed past the curls below, and she found herself wet and wanting.

As she felt herself suddenly filled, she thought of Cat’s hands binding her wrists, holding her throat, whispering in a gentle lullaby, _“Just let go.”_ Soothing kisses on her forehead, like bloated drops of dew. Flashes of hiked-up skirts, parted thighs, stunning lace bras visible from the cleavage. The delightful clarity of knowing that, only by staying perfectly still, trusting herself to suppress her urges, Kara could earn the right to really, truly, let go.

To know she had the power of a thousand suns inside of her, that her hands could crush, beat, and kill (as easy as snapping a twig in two), but for the sake of redemption, she would surrender them. Knees weak and mouth dry, she would cede control. She tried to picture how it would feel to relinquish at once her superhuman strength, crane her neck and offer it in tribute, a gift to the goddess, queen of all games, sovereign of her desire. Oh how she would beg for the privilege.

Kara’s fingers were now moving in and out, slick and fast; she shuddered grinding her open palm. _I can break free whenever I want, but I don’t want to, I don’t want to, not yet, I don’t want to. Yet. “Oh.”_

And as the floodgates opened, she felt relief flowing through her, one crashing wave after another. The fire in her quenched to a pile of smoldering embers. The flowing water felt like a tender embrace, the safety of a lover’s arms.

She exhaled, exhausted, resting her back on the cold wall of the shower. _This is getting serious. I don’t think I can ignore it any longer._

***

Kara walked out of Noonan’s, latte in hand, and hurried along towards the CatCo building; she was, as she had been many times before, oh-so-slightly late.

After the previous night’s conversation with Cat, she wasn’t too keen on straining their relationship further: she felt self-conscious about it, after a night of _fantasising_ , but failing to deliver Miss Grant’s latte on time wouldn’t do much to improve the situation.

Cat had gone out on a limb and admitted wanting to pursue a relationship with Supergirl _(The thing is, she never actually said what kind of relationship?)_ and all Kara felt now was panic. She had spent the better part of the night obsessing about it, phone in hand, constantly on the verge of texting or calling, but every minute that passed made her feel less and less sure that coming clean about reciprocating her attraction was the right thing to do. Wary of falling back into that rabbit hole, she sped her pace up, walking as fast as her human appearance allowed. She knew something needed to be done about it, _but what_?

Kara thought of how rushed she’d been that morning; she’d barely had time to stop by the DEO to check in on Winn’s girlfriend and ended up skipping breakfast. _I can’t think straight without food in the morning. I can’t think straight for a million reasons, but an empty stomach is literally the worst._

After enduring the most frustratingly slow elevator ride of her life, Kara made it up to the main floor and was happy to find Cat distracted by a freshly delivered, bright pink box. Cat accepted her latte, greeted her with a warm smile, beaming excitement; she set the cup immediately aside.

“Aren’t they exquisite?” Cat said, placing the pink box on her desk and opening it slowly; suspense seeped out as the contents were revealed to be… cupcakes.

Kara took in the sight of the perfect little pastries, pastel coloured delights; her mouth watered at the thought of how they would feel on her tongue. “Yes, they look very yummy.”

She turned towards her boss and saw her looking as if Kara herself was a delicious cupcake, Cat’s eyes lapping at her as if her skin was covered in frosting, taking tiny morsels of sponge filling, licking sprinkles from her full lips.

_Or maybe an empty stomach is not the reason I can’t think straight._

“I can see it in your eyes that you want one,” Cat baited her further by raising an eyebrow, “but you’re too scared. So instead, you gaze longingly from a safe distance, wishing that you had one all of your own.”

“Well, let me tell you, cupcakes like these… they don’t last. They get snatched up and devoured.” _And the same could happen to you,_ she seemed to add suggestively, in Kara’s head, _wouldn’t you like to get snatched up?_

“Keira, if you haven’t caught on by now, I’m trying to make a parallel between this box of cupcakes and your nonexistent love life.”

Kara looked at her, puzzled, amazed at the openness her boss was showing in flirting with her. She enjoyed unapologetic displays of power as much as the next girl, but Cat was really going all out on this.

As if catching on, Cat backtracked a little. “I heard Mr. Olsen is a single man again; are you planning on doing anything about that?”

_Oh, sure, it’s about James now. Two can play that game, you know?_

“He… As a matter of fact, he told me he needs time to think.” Kara could play, but she wasn’t so nonchalant that she could do so while holding Cat’s gaze. “But then I’m afraid that, if I leave him alone for too long, he’s going to to talk himself out of it. If you were in the same situation, what would you do?”

“If you want _James_ ,” she stressed the word, dispelling any suspicion that they were talking about him at all, “you’re going to have to have to make a power move. Make yourself unavailable, make him jealous.”

“So the best way to go after James is not to go after him at all?”

“Precisely,” Cat replied with a wide grin, eyes darting down to the box of cupcakes, each a different shade of temptation, seductive in their promise of creamy sweetness, each bite a small taste of heaven.

 _A power move, huh?_ Kara pondered, her attention captured by the pastries in front of her. She reached forward to grab one, only for her arm to be stopped in mid-air, Cat’s hand closing over her wrist with a murderous gaze, her skin tingling where Cat’s hand touched her, gripped with immoderate strength.

“These are mine,” was all she said on the subject.

***

“There’s a new hero in National City,” Cat announced using her down-to-business tone. “This is huge. Direct competition for Supergirl.” She looked as unamused as the toughest kid on the playground as she spotted some newcomer playing with her favourite toy.

“He doesn't have to be competition,” Kara replied, but she wasn’t interested in Kara. She was interested in the man standing next to her, shifting uncomfortably in his pose, hands in his pockets; he looked around _her_ office, his eyes settling upon _her_ things, _her_ room, _her Kara_.

  
“Would you prefer a sidekick?” Cat made sure to use her most antagonising voice. Even outnumbered like this, in a battle of wits, she’d always have the upper hand.

“No, not a sidekick. More like an equal. Or an ally. Even a partner, maybe.” Tall, brown eyes, brown hair, the smile of a boy who’d always been burdened with good intentions. Cat stared at him intently, unsure whether to murder him right then and there for interrupting or simply bully him into retreat.

“Speaking was the wrong choice, I see that now,” he gulped, his cartoonish reaction enhanced by how his gaze fell to his feet. _Whipped. Good._

Somewhat amusingly, when Cat asked, “And who are you?” the last thing she was expecting was three different people, namely Kara, Winn, and James, to simultaneously declare him their cousin. _Well, well._

“My name's Barry Allen. I'm not actually anybody's cousin. Uh, we're just such good friends...” the boy said, evidently back in the saddle.

“...It feels like we're family sometimes.” _Oh Kiera, what a disastrous attempt at a save._  


“Uh-huh,” was all that she could say. Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits, patience wearing thin.

“Well, I need a clear picture of this speedster. James, that's on you.” James nodded, slipping back into his professional role.

  
“And Kiera, there are a lot of people who wanna know what happened.” Cat’s focus was back on her now, her _yummy_ yellow dress, the exclusive story combined with _the girl connected to the exclusive story_ was one hell of a turn-on.

“Speak to no one. You're mine. I will let you know when you should reveal this exclusive information.” And when Kara nodded, when the _damn eagerness_ shone through once more, Cat had to do her best not to blush, melt into a puddle, or generally _embarrass herself_ in front of a captive audience.

***

The last thing Cat heard before passing out was an unbearable screeching noise; she pressed her hands against her ears in a desperate attempt to dampen it. The sound was so sharp it felt like daggers piercing her eardrums, sinking deep into her head. She held her breath; then, all at once, blackness enveloped her.

As she came to her senses, all her aches bubbled up to the surface, one after the other: her head throbbed, her ears were still ringing from the Banshee scream, and her neck was stiff from lying in an awkward position, hands chained to a bench. She looked around and saw light, daylight, a park.

“Look at that! Kitty finally wakes up from her nap.”

Leslie stood in front of her, a spiteful defiant grin stretched on her face. Cat eyed her with apathy, any affection she ever had for the woman ruined and gone beyond repair. All that remained between them was blind, furious hate on one side, tired indifference on the other.

“Ignore me all you want, Cat, but your toy hero hasn’t come to your rescue yet. And I’m starting to get bored. Do you think she’ll show?” She grabbed Cat’s chin and held it hard, tried to force her to look at her, but Cat insisted on avoiding eye contact. “Should we start playing without her?”

Cat bit back the urge to reply, and focussed on taking in her surroundings instead, figure out how long she had been unconscious, how long it had been since she last saw Kara, how much time the girl had to notice she was missing and plan a rescue. _It’s mid-afternoon,_ she concluded, slightly reassured, _not long. I haven’t been gone for long._

Huffing in frustration, her provocation tactics falling short, Livewire stepped back, calling a burst of electricity to her right hand, the charge visible and crackling in the air between her fingers. She placed her hand on Cat’s chest, brushing her jacket aside and going straight for her breasts. It felt so different being touched like this, by hands that knew her body, that had clutched her with desire a hundred times before, now grabbing her with fresh hatred, nothing even remotely sexual about this tension.

“No, Leslie, please don’t do this.” Cat tried the pleading route, feeling Leslie’s fingers close to her heart, aware that she was a second, a spiteful snap, a whim away from being electrocuted.

“Begging? Really? That’s new coming from you.” Leslie scoffed, possibly remembering her own begging, how she’d implored Cat to give her a second chance while Cat remained her usual impassive self.

“What are you so afraid you're gonna miss? Another silly award ceremony? Where a bunch of sycophants kowtow to the false queen and tell you how great you are?” Indeed that was what her life had been like when Leslie had been in it.

“I’m not asking for myself. I’m asking for my boys. I’m all they have”

“Boo _fucking hoo_ , Cat. Am I really supposed to buy this sentimental crap from you? You know they’d be better off with someone else. Someone who actually spends time with them. Someone who-”

Supergirl landed with a whoosh behind Leslie. _The red boy, cousin Barry, is with her. Good._ And upon seeing the caped hero, all but sparkling in the sunlight, she remembered how comforting the sight of Kara in her costume was, especially when one was handcuffed to a park bench.

Banshee wasted no time blasting the two heroes with her scream, but instead of holding their head in pain, they stood their ground, seemingly unaffected. _Perhaps there is hope for us yet._

As soon as The Blur distracted the two villains, Kara rushed to her, scanning her restraints wide-eyed, and released her from the cuffs, metal snapping with incredible ease. “What took you so long?” she asked Kara, feigning impatience.

“Are you kidding?” the girl replied, eyes brimming with worry. In her stern gaze, Cat saw the dutiful assistant that approached her earlier that day and prompted her to pack her bags and get to safety. But no, stubborn as always, Cat had to endanger everyone with her foolish refusal to run.

Freed from her restraints, she exhaled in relief. As when stepping off a rollercoaster at the end of the ride, once her heart had stopped beating so damn hard, she felt the exhilaration of yet another crisis averted, the exhausted, deep thrill of being saved by the girl, _Supergirl_ , who would always come for her.

***

“Oh, Ms. Grant, if it's alright with you, our cousin, Barry... Barry's leaving town, and I was gonna see him off.”

 _Barry’s leaving town._ Those words felt good. They were not supposed to feel as good as they did, but there they came, a soothing merciful remedy, nipping her jealousy right in the bud.

The idea of Kara alone with that boy had been driving her crazy ever since she made it back from the office earlier. Cat was used to seeing Kara around _James_ , but this was the first time she witnessed so much chemistry. Barry could stand next to her and make her smile without effort; he knew her and her secret identity; he was somebody who could be a true partner for her. Oh, Jimmy was nothing compared to that. _I am nothing compared to that_.

  
“Okay. Tell Mr. Allen to have a good time zipping around in his red outfit.”

“Wait, you knew he was The Flash?”

Kara’s surprise was adorable. It was almost as if she hadn’t figured out yet that their attempts at covering his identity had as much chance of succeeding as her not finding out about the Superfriends office they’d occupied on the 37th floor. _Give me a little credit, darling, I’m a reporter after all._

“Oh, please. Barry shows up, The Flash shows up. His insistence on that silly name. And he was so unfailingly charming and nice that he had to either be a superhero or a Mormon.”

She considered wrapping up there, but in the end, she couldn’t resist being her usual blunt self. “Keira, I can spot the extraordinary pretending to be a nobody in my midst just like that.” She snapped her fingers loudly in front of the girl’s face, a gesture so extravagant in its directness that it surprised her along with Kara. _If you still have any doubts at all about whether I know who you are, Supergirl, you better banish them right away._  


“Now, my eyebrow waxing with Arabella at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning is not going to book itself. Feel how good it feels to dial.”  


“I'm on it,” Kara replied right away, with the dutiful urgency of someone who would take any excuse to get away from her dramatic stare.

It felt good ordering her around like that; it felt good knowing that the all powerful Supergirl, who’d saved her from _Livewire_ just hours before, was now going to pick up the phone and book her a damn beauty treatment. It was her way of saying “ _you can go say goodbye to your friend, Kara, but remember who you belong to”_.

As soon as the girl was gone, Cat found herself slumped in her office chair, unable to relax. Although she knew that Barry was officially leaving town, and although she had done her absolute best to hint at Kara that she needed to ignore the object of her desire… somehow deep inside her, she still hoped that Kara wouldn’t all-out disregard her. She loved being in control, leading the hunt; she had been more than explicit in telling Kara she was interested in her: short of physically pouncing on her (and cupcakes aside), she’d made her attraction manifest.

The more she thought about the past weeks, the more she felt uncomfortable about pushing further. Kara was still her assistant (the best she’d had in years), Kara was her _employee_ , and it just wasn’t _right_ to force her hand, and yes, yes, she thought she saw interest in her - she caught a sharp breath or two, shivering as they stared each other down that night on the balcony, when Kara had caught her smoking - but it was all speculation, _speculation and wishful thinking_.

It was now up to Kara to make a decision, tip the scales one way or another, shine some light on the age old question between them: “Will you be eaten, my dear?”

***

In the blink of an eye, Barry was gone. And yet, hours after he left, the echo of his presence lingered on. Kara had made it all the way back home and was sitting in the silence of her apartment; she found herself smiling at the thought of him, hopeful that he succeeded in his quest, made it back to his Earth safely.

Her thoughts jumped back to that morning, to the dive she took from the 40th floor of the CatCo building, the fall that dropped her in the arms of The Flash, the jagged shards of glass that exploded behind her as her back hit the glass, the banshee scream who pushed through the window, the anger that mounted in her as she stood in Cat’s defence, seeing Siobhan approaching with revenge in her eyes. _Cat._

Her own heart sped up at the thought, the disturbing, sick idea that Cat could’ve really died there. Her fingers itched, pins and needles sweeping her extremities as she felt her face heat up, ripples of blind frustration. _Why wouldn’t she just listen to me? I came to her with a plan. I told her I’d bring her to safety, that I’d get her and Carter away. Rao! Why the_ fuck _would she not just listen?_

Kara shook her head, the involuntary response to the surge of anxiety and unease that coiled around her heart and squeezed. _Cat almost died today. If I’d arrived a moment later…_ She closed her eyes and clenched them tight, as if that could help dispel the image forming in her head: Livewire, her face deformed by psychotic rage, her hand inside Cat’s jacket, on her heart.

There was a universe, an Earth out there, where Cat had died today. Where Kara had not arrived in time to save her, and her heart had stopped, never to start again. She pictured her lifeless face, eyes staring uselessly at the sky, her gorgeous mouth open in surprise, and Kara’s chest ached - constrained, suffocated by the absurdity of the vision.

There was an alternate reality where a grief-stricken Kara held Carter in her arms, planned a funeral worthy of a queen. A place where the next conversation she had with Adam involved telling him his mother was dead, telling him Cat was dead because she hadn’t been able to convince her to stand down, to flee, to prioritise her safety over her _damn fucking pride_. Where she broke down in tears and told him his mother was dead because of her, _because of me, because of Me, because I have my own share of stubbornness and pride, because I was somehow under the impression that I could keep my identity hidden from her and still keep her safe_.

None of it happened, though. None of it was real, and when the panic finally subsided, Kara realised that she never wanted to underestimate the risk ever again. She realised that Cat was right, that their relationship indeed needed a power move, but not in the way she thought, until now. She tried ignoring, she tried the meek shy girl who lured her in by looking pretty in a summer dress, she tried the dutiful assistant that always unfailingly said _Yes, Miss Grant_ , she tried the hero coming to her rescue, and none of it sufficed, none of it was transparent enough.

Barry’s words earlier had hit a sweet spot: Kara always tried to fix all of her problems with brute force, and she should just slow down, slow down and let go, and the solution would come to her. So she slowed down. And she let go. And the solution came to her.


	7. You win

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took me so long to publish this chapter, but I hope it was worth the wait :)
> 
> I've also updated the tags and added some tw:drug use warnings, so beware.

The faint scraping of metal against metal. Cat looked at the source of the noise with fleeting interest: two panels sliding sideways, the elevator doors opening to a view of the front door of her apartment. She stood paralysed, uncertain as to how to move forward; she desperately wanted to cling to the _not-quite-home_ feeling, stretch the remaining seconds into an impossible distance, postpone and procrastinate.

The ride home went by too quickly, she had hoped to find comfort in the quiet hum of the engine, the views of the empty streets as they zipped past, but it was over well before she had a chance to relax.

Her attention wandered to the environment around her: the geometric pattern on the carpeting in the hallway, the row of buttons to her right, the largest button at the top, “P” for Penthouse, lit up in a pleasing shade of red. She tried to move, but her legs were unresponsive. She pictured the effort required to lift a foot off the floor, move it forward, then again on the other side. She imagined sliding the keycard from the inner pocket of her blazer, the plastic rectangle smooth and small in her hand, the flash of light as the door unlocked, a sharp clicking noise as the mechanism released the lock.

She had done this a thousand times, a thousand times she had stepped out of the small space in a hurry, reached the door with impatience and burst into the apartment, eyes and ears alert for signs of her son. Tonight was no exception; or was it?

 _Just get inside_ she urged herself, _get in the apartment, and then you can let yourself fall apart._ She just needed a good night’s sleep. She hadn’t had one in far too long. _A good night’s sleep and a glass of bourbon. One glass._

It wasn’t until the fourth one that she realised the answers she seeked, the courage, were not to be found at the bottom of a glass. Head swimming a little, neck resting on the edge of the bathtub, she looked up at the ceiling, gripping the side of the tub with her right hand. _I fucked it up didn’t I? I ruined it._

The water was lukewarm; it hugged her like a soft cocoon. In spite of the alcohol dulling her senses, the supposedly relaxing bath, she was painfully aware of just how empty she felt.

_I ruined it. I told her I was attracted to her. I told her I was attracted to Supergirl, but let’s face it, what are the chances that they are really not one and the same?_

Kara’s reaction at her bold declaration had been telling. The girl had blushed furiously and dropped her gaze to those horrid ballet flats she insisted on calling shoes. “Well, uhm, I hope she feels the same, Miss Grant,” she had said. “I’m sorry but it’s… it’s getting very late. I think I should go.” Before Cat could voice her protest, before she could _fix it_ , Kara had stubbed her cigarette out on the marble slab and disappeared. Cat wasn’t entirely sure human beings were supposed to be able to retreat that fast.

 _Offering her a cigarette... what was I thinking? That I could corrupt her?_ She laughed out loud, small ripples forming in the tub as her chest fluttered. She looked down at her naked body, bloated and distorted when viewed through the water. _What did I expect from her? That she would fall at my feet? Yank those glasses off and rip her shirt open, tell me: do with me as you please._

To make matters worse, she had then proceeded to cheer herself up with a box of cupcakes. Superb mouth-watering bliss, they were the perfect distraction. _Can’t get the girl to worship you? A dozen cupcakes will do wonders for your savage appetite_.

The box and its contents had suddenly lost their allure once Kara had stood in front of it, lips parted in contemplation, eyeing the pastries. It had taken all her strength not to shove the box aside and grab the girl by the collar of her sweater, leave hungry marks all over her neck. The very idea still caused Cat’s breath to hitch in her throat.

And then? Disaster! She had felt threatened (by a boy, of all things). Cat Grant was a queen, and queens didn’t fall prey to such petty jealousies! It had been a very long time since she’d been so invested, so _possessive_ , and yet the feeling came crushing down as if it never really left her. It had been years since she last felt anything remotely like this rivalry - since that pretty legal intern had had the _nerve_ to attempt a seduction of her husband over twenty years before.

Jealous Cat was a terrible judge of character. Jealous Cat was a terrible judge of anything - as exemplified by her adamantine foolish decision to confront Livewire head on. And when she had been inevitably saved, when Supergirl had come to her rescue, it had made her look irresponsible. Gone was her power over her, evaporated in a second, as the handcuffs that imprisoned her snapped open under the strain of superhuman strength.

_I scared her away, and now our relationship will never be the same._

The thought barely had time to sink in before she heard her phone buzz. She glanced at it: it lay face up at the opposite side of the tub; the screen was lit and emanated a faint glow visible in the low light of the room. After hesitating for a moment, she reached for it, fingers brushing past the bourbon glass, _how easy it would be to pour a little more, just a finger or two._ The effort of lifting herself up to grab the phone made it evident just how dizzy and drained she felt. _No, bourbon won’t help with that._

Cat’s heart leapt in her chest once she saw the name “Kara” on the lock screen and a small grey rectangle showing a preview of the message: “You win.” it said.

***

Kara’s fingers gripped the phone in her hand so hard that she had to actively keep herself from shattering it. It wouldn’t be the first time that she ended up with a bundle of jagged glass and metal at Winn’s desk, begging him to fish her sim card out.

The screen showed the conversation log between her and Cat: a series of terse instructions, lunch orders, work dates. The latest message was different, however: it was the only one among hers which wasn’t a variation of “Yes, Miss Grant” and “Right away, Miss Grant”.

“You win.” Two words, a punctuation mark.

After typing it, staring down at the cursor blinking after the dot, she had waited and waited for panic to rush her like an angry bull. Panic never came. Pressing “Send” then had been the most natural thing to do, the logical consequence of the series of events that brought her there, overwhelmed by hunger, staring at her phone so hard that she feared she might accidentally incinerate it.

And so one minute had passed, then two, ten, twenty. Kara’s chest tightened whenever she looked down at the screen. “You win.” So bold (so vague), so out of place in the rhythm of the conversation. Every moment spent standing there without an answer, she felt doubt and regret cutting deeper. _Was this the right move?_ _Will she understand what I mean? She wasn’t exactly straightforward herself, talking about Leslie, their relationship, the attachment for Supergirl. For me._

_And then again, did I misread the whole situation? Did I let myself get carried away by a fantasy? Something that I want but that she doesn’t even see? The way she looked at me from across the table, the box of cupcakes between us, spoke louder than a thousand words, but hey, maybe-_

The unexpected vibration in her hands made her jump in surprise, an involuntary yelp escaping her as she held the device like a hot coal, a smoking gun.

A new message bubble in the conversation: “I beg your pardon?”

 _Oh fuck me. Fuck. Me._ With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she felt dragged to the ground by a powerful force. Gripping the phone with both hands and drunk in the haze of the moment, she quickly typed her reply before excitement gave way to shame.

 

 Kara felt her face heat up, embarrassment engulf her, robbing her of precious air. _Come ask me in person. Come. Come in person. In person who? Me? In person when? Right now?_ The more she read and re-read, the less and less sense the words made.

_Holy fuck, it’s happening. There is no turning back. There was a few moments ago, and now it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s real._

She pictured herself in front of Cat, standing in an imaginary place, a room with no walls, just her and her frantic self, trembling with anticipation. Would she pour her heart out? Would she succumb to Cat’s dominant gaze and remain silent? Obediently waiting until she got permission to speak?

It did sound like a _right now_ request. And either way, it wasn’t as if Kara was in any state to wait.

***

The sound the water made as she pulled herself out of the tub completely disoriented Cat: it made her feel dirty; it reeked of transgression, wrongness. It was the sound of rushing when you really can’t afford it, the sound of hiding pieces of broken glass before anybody sees them, mopping up the spilled mess before people start to notice you’re missing.

Cat was drunk, wrapped in a cloud of numbness, swimming in an almost pleasant daze. She dried her limbs and her body, wrapped a towel around her hair, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. _Who are you?_ She silently asked the familiar face. _Are you the one who’s been flirting with my assistant? Are you aware of just how ridiculous and stupid and_ plain wrong _that is?_

Her stomach clenched at the thought of Kara. Kara reading her latest message. Kara staring at the screen in shock. Kara glancing at the window and sprinting towards it, shooting into the night.

 _She’s coming here right now, isn’t she? Why did I tell her that- I was- Fuck. I’m in no state to-_ Cat turned on the tap at the sink, sighing in resignation, her rational mind reaching the same conclusion her instinct pointed her towards. She ran her hands under the faucet until the water felt cold and cupped her hands to splash her face with it. _Oh who cares._

She padded silently to the bedroom, draping herself in the silk kimono she wore around the house, searched for her handbag, and found it right there where she had left it at the bottom of the bed. The leather purse was in the inner pocket, then in her hands, then open on the shelf in the bathroom: inside, a series of plastic packets from which one was plucked, a metal straw, a foldable mirror, a razor blade, its upper edge dulled and held between two tired fingers.

One flawless line of white powder. She bent over it and inhaled, remembering at once, with immense and perfect clarity, why cocaine had been her drug of choice all these years.

***

Kara wondered how long it was possible for her to resist feeling like this. Heartbeat drumming in her ears, senses hyper alert, waves of boundless strength making their way through her body. She folded her glasses closed and closed her eyes; her hand shook as she put them back in their case. She always handled them with immense care: they were not fragile, per se, but they represented the fragility in her, the crutch she leant on when everything around her got too loud, sharp enough to hurt.

This was indubitably one of those moments where she could feel the radiance of Earth’s yellow sun swell and spread inside her chest. The low drone of a shiver, the steady trembling in her knees - she wondered, _what if I explode?_

She folded her clothes slowly, with purpose, set them in the flat bag she carried under her cape when flying around. The glasses were there; she palmed the case as a proxy for nudging the lead frame, felt a little reassured. _I don’t need them, not tonight_.

Obsessing about it was no use as she had memorised the shortest possible path between her and Cat’s apartment. It was one of those things she kept in the back of her mind at all times, like an emergency escape route - in a pinch, she wanted to be able to get to her as quickly as possible.

Flying there on the wings of longing felt like a hazy dream, every sensation coming to her through a dampening field, the wind hitting her skin with half a second delay, the sounds, all sounds, muffled and soft.

She entered Cat’s building as if lifted by an airless breeze; her feet were light and soundless, dance steps on the velvet covered stairs. She nodded at the concierge, a small smile of _something_ painted on her lips. _Is it confidence? Is it hope?_ She headed straight for the elevator, hands flattening wrinkles on her jeans. _If everything goes well, I won’t keep them on too long, will I?_

When the elevator reached the top floor and the panels slid open, she realised that the door she stood in front of was unlike any door she had ever seen: it was every shade of wood, every possible texture. The detail so intricate that she was taken by the irresistible urge to press her palm against it and feel the grain. Her eyes were perfect, and she could see the carvings down to the micron, the vibrations on the surface reverberating all the walls and windows, support beams and reinforced concrete. For a second, she considered peeking beyond, but a door was an inviolable veil of privacy; she could never defy it.

Her shaking hand hovered by the doorbell. She mentally transversed the conversation she had with Cat just minutes ago. “ _Come ask me in person_.” _Outspoken enough._ Her fingers pressed down on the sensor like a sledgehammer, the last bastion of doubt, shattered and broken, crumbled down with a roar. A whistling tune emanated from a speaker on the other side of the door. A heartbeat getting closer, steps on the marble floor. The door opening.

***

Cat took two steps back, the door halfway open. Kara was only a few feet away from her, and she looked absolutely stunning: arms crossed behind her back, frightened, ecstatic. She raised her eyes and met Cat’s gaze, held it for what seemed like an endless moment. _Breathe. Now._

It wasn’t her clothes or makeup - _those drab jeans are not flattering at all, the shirt looks worn and boyish_ \- it wasn’t the way she looked, but the way she carried herself, almost in supplication, at once docile and daring. A perfectly ripe fruit, a gem, a flower. Something young and unspoiled, safe from the tragedy of time. _No, that’s not quite right_ … In her eyes, behind the blind lust, Cat could see a sharper edge; underneath the surface, something (a yearning, a hunger) pushed her out of the frame of normalcy.

Cat focused on the girl: Kara was obviously waiting for permission to enter her home, to be led inside, for her to take the reins - she didn’t let the hint linger more than necessary. She moved slowly, without haste; without breaking eye contact, she took Kara’s hand in hers and blinked, once, pulled her inside, backtracking the both of them inside the apartment.

The door closed, a sharp click, then silence, Kara with her back pushed against it, looked puzzled but intrigued, still waiting, seeking validation for being there. Cat’s hands rested against the door on either side of her chest, and Kara opened her mouth, the beginning of a sound on her tongue, but was silenced by a single finger raised to her lips, the pressure barely noticeable, the touch a non-touch, more of a signal _: Silence._

Then the finger left her face, travelled to her neck and collarbones. Kara stood still as Cat’s eyes and hands inspected her slowly, as if checking if she were real. Not a trick, not a robot, not a doll, a monster from another universe, but Kara Danvers, flesh and blood, the real thing. The hands rested on the collar of her shirt and started undoing the top button, then the second, the third. By the time the fourth button was undone Cat could peek at the blue costume underneath. Her heart leapt in her throat as more and more of the fabric became visible, the realisation sinking in slowly until it became a frantic urge, a choking sound in the back of her throat.

Cat’s right hand slid up to toy with the hair at the base of Kara’s neck, curl fingers and grab. She looked into Kara’s eyes once more before dragging her down towards her, to her shuddering breath, to the deafening heartbeat in her ears. She stood on her toes to lick Kara’s lower lip, suck on it slowly, bite without restraint, aware she could never cause any sort of pain, before pulling her into a kiss.

Kara’s lips were soft and tasted fresh, delicious. She teased them with her tongue while the world around her faded, her entire body absorbed into the vortex. Kissing Kara was like taking a gulp of fresh water after being thirsty for _far too long_ , like dunking both hands in a mountain river until her fingers went numb; it filled her body with renewed strength, made her acutely aware of her desire, the torture of months and months of staring at those lips without knowing, without touching, without burying her face in the sickly hypnotic smell of _her_.

Kara broke off after a few seconds, gasped for air, eyes closed. There was an impenetrable expression to her, a soft ache, as she rested her head on the heavy door behind her, furrowed eyebrows, tense jaw. She took a few deep breaths, then opened her eyes again. The urge to speak was painfully visible, but she said nothing. She cupped Cat’s face in her hands instead and kissed her, gently at first, then dropped all restraint, all stiff pretenses, knees buckling and open mouth; she kissed her with a slobbery, messy abandon that Cat never expected from her.

Cat kissed back, this time harder, with more hunger, riding the wave of a passion Cat forgot was in her, the intensity and purpose of a first love, the racing pulse of horny teenagers fooling around in secret. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._

Her head was void of all conscious thought. She had obsessed about this moment at the edge of the precipice: she thought the view from here would give her some clarity (some satisfaction?). She had fantasised that the kiss would break the spell, deliver with sky-parting clarity the verdict that no, she was not, in fact, going to fall for her assistant. If nothing else, she realised how ridiculous that notion was, how misplaced the hope. She longed to be _free_ , but instead she felt empty, sucked dry, and wholly consumed, all hands and breath and mouth, a deep ache between her legs.

She gripped Kara’s blouse from the collar and pulled down; two buttons broke off and rattled to the ground, the loudest noise after their ragged breaths. She pulled again and again a second time, hard, until the blouse ripped open completely. The red symbol on Kara’s chest was completely visible, so close, so real. She ran her hands on the material, feeling the ridges in relief. Not a comment, not a word.

“Undress,” Cat said, and Kara nodded, a single, almost imperceptible nod, and slid the zipper of her costume down all the way to her hip, her breath choking a little as Cat’s hands slid inside to touch the slice of visible skin, travel under the fabric, grip her possessively.

Kara kicked her boots off and stepped out of the costume. Cat looked at her with a warm, hungry smile - the smile of a predator who just saw dinner jump in front of her out of a bush. Simple black underwear, skin covered with a sheen of sweat, Kara’s smell filling her lungs and making quick work of any doubts regarding where this was about to lead. She took Kara by the wrist and dragged her further into the room, the spot where her fingers gripped her skin tingling with possibility.

Cat was fully aware of where everything was in her home, could navigate the space even in almost complete darkness. The kitchen table was the closest available surface; she silently cursed its relative messiness (one glass of bourbon too many?) and pushed everything off it. Objects clattered to the ground, something shattered, _a glass? I can’t worry about that now._

She turned to grab Kara by her waist, shove her against the table, hips pressed against Kara’s ass. Her hands rubbed Kara’s stomach, squeezed her breasts. She left a trail of kisses up along her spine, all the way to her neck. She nudged a few locks of blonde hair aside and leant over to speak softly in her ear “Not a sound, are we clear?”

Kara whimpered and nodded again, just in time for Cat to yank her panties down to her thighs without warning, take a few steps back, and look. _I best savour the moment_ , Cat thought to herself, memorise the image of her _unbelievably hot_ assistant bent over her kitchen table, _waiting_ be be properly fucked.

She ran a finger over Kara’s thighs all the way to her knees, drew her nails across the skin slowly, then up to her perfectly round ass again, dragged her underwear down to her ankles.

Cat knelt on the floor and looked closer: she could see the goosebumps on Kara’s skin as she gazed, mouth open, at the divine superhuman beauty of how ready Kara was for her, dripping wet, juices running down her thighs, skin glistening in the faint light of the city outside.

She was sure Kara could feel her near as she breathed in the rich tempting smell of her pussy. Cat couldn’t resist but dip a finger in, drag it across her labia, and suck it. This made Kara whimper again and _speak_ , a tiny whine of a sound, barely audible. “Please Cat-” she said.

Cat stood up immediately and pushed her against the table, _hard_ , cupped her with her right hand and squeezed “What did I say? Not a _fucking_ sound,” she whispered in ragged anger, razor blade sharp. She thrust two fingers inside her all at once. Kara arched her back and gripped the table, visibly straining to keep her promise to _shut the fuck up_.

There was nothing in the world besides them in that holy moment. It was a ritual, a sacrifice: an offering was being made, and the victim walked herself atop the altar. She held the dagger and offered the hilt, said: take me, _I’m yours._

Cat added one, then slowly two more fingers, curled and spread them, feeling Kara stretch underneath her like clay, bend to her will. Her other hand steadied her against the table. Kara pressed her cheek down against the surface, her eyes squeezed shut and lips parted in a strained silence. She felt Kara tense and relax with every breath, with every thrust and stroke, as they settled into a slow steady rhythm, a drop by drop erosion of the barrier that kept them apart.

Cat’s plan was to remain steadily in control as she’d always done under the circumstances, _don’t give anything but the minimum necessary to maintain the fiction of play_. But Cat never imagined Kara would let herself go so completely. Moving inside her, fingers slick and pushing hard, she didn’t expect her to be so eager, so ready to be at her mercy, push back against her hand asking for more and more and _more_.

And so she gave her more, spread her fingers wide, thrust them as deep as they would go. Kara’s body’s under her fingers was hot and impatient and wild. Something inside her was stirring, warmed by such an unwarranted show of trust: it leaked like honey from her careful defenses, dripped, sticky and golden, onto her arms and her hands, escaped her mouth in the small kisses she placed on Kara’s back, the reassuring sounds whispered in her ear, the gentle rolling caress of her hips and in the way she gripped her tight, as if she never ever wanted to let go. Because when the teeth sink into the prey, when the fight is nothing but a jumble of muscles and sweat, who’s to say _really_ which is the hunter and which is the hunted?

“Mom?” The voice pierced the veil of secrecy, dissolved it in an instant, the hole in which they buried themselves suddenly exposed. Cat’s stomach clenched as she added up the clues. Carter’s voice, coming from down the hall - Carter, who wasn’t at his father’s tonight, who was at home, sleeping in his bed, while she got drunk and then high and then decided to _fuck Kara Danvers_ on her kitchen table _._ For the umpteenth time that night, Cat thought: _Fuck_.

Kara, in the meantime, had raised her head and turned towards her; she looked flushed, embarrassed, visibly panicking. _And now?_

“Mom are you still awake? I heard some noise.” _Fuck._

“Yeah, it’s me, sweetie. Go back to bed.” Her voice faltered a little, her eyes darted down to her hands, sticky and dripping, and she reached for a roll of kitchen paper and tore a handful off.

“Guest room. First on the left. Go,” she whispered to Kara, who nodded and disappeared in a noiseless blur, backtracking to the front door to grab her discarded clothes.

She started towards the hallway, where she heard more clearly her son’s steps, bare heels hitting the marble floor. “Mom, what’s going on? Did you make a mess again?” He sounded tired, exhausted. “Do you need me to call someone?”

“I’m fine Carter, just…”

He flipped the light switch, and Cat flinched as the room was lit and her son was exposed to the disturbing traces of the events that had recently unfolded in that room. Several objects were scattered across the floor: a set of placemats and a table runner, an empty fruit bowl, a teaspoon, and in the corner, towards the living room, a broken _Hulk_ mug.

“Mom! That was my favourite!” Carter shrieked with exasperation.

He darted towards the item, cradling the pieces in his hand, shaken with disbelief.

“Oh honey, I’ll get you a new one.” Cat was simply relieved Carter walked straight past the wet spot on the table without batting an eye.

“It was _signed by Stan Lee_ , mom. You can’t _just get me a new one_.” Venom dripped from his words, and he collected the shards one by one, placed them carefully in his pajama top. “Just… great,” he scoffed before heading back to the corridor towards his room, clutching the lump in his shirt protectively.

Carter flipped the switch again and the room went dark. Alone in that space again, Cat felt naked. Her heart beat furiously in her chest, and her body ached, the ghost of Kara’s touch lingering where their bodies were joined just a minute before, heat replaced with the absence of heat, a chill that felt unbearable. She took a deep breath and sighed as her thoughts slowly reverted to the girl she’d banished to the guest room.

_Well… Fuck._


	8. Prelude to something wicked

Kara closed the door behind her, pressed her back against it, and slumped to the floor, releasing a shallow sigh. She _hoped_ this was the right room, and after a quick glance at the decor, the impersonal quality of the furnishing and details, she resolved that it wasn’t anybody’s bedroom, at least.

As she eyed her surroundings, the tension that choked her started slowly to relax its grip, replaced with worry. What if Carter had seen them? Kara pictured those gorgeous blue eyes, the boy staring at her in awe, then the admiration morphing into disgust as he realised what she and _his mom_ were up to. The very idea filled her with embarrassment, and she pressed harder against the frame, extended her senses as a means to escape her own head, focus on what was going on in the kitchen, get some clues.

After Carter walked away, distracted by the loss of his mug, the house had gone quiet. Kara strained to single out Cat’s heartbeat, fast and regular, still at a fixed distance somewhere several feet away from her. She was about to move when she heard it approach, and stepped away from the door as Cat pushed it open to enter.

Kara hadn’t turned on any light when she came in, wary of alerting Carter to her presence, but Cat headed straight for the lamp on the nightstand, her hand turning the dimmer and bathing them both in gentle, reddish light.

Kara forced herself to look at Cat, and as their eyes met, it was suddenly impossible for her to breathe; the memory of _where she was_ a few minutes before transported her back to a state of powerless euphoria. She ached to get back there, to feel it again. _I want that, I do. I don’t know that I can go on living without it_.

“I should go,” Kara made herself say, dragged her bravery out kicking and screaming.

“Nonsense, you just got here.”

“Still, it’s obvious that this is not an ideal moment for-” She made to leave, and Cat stepped between her and the door, placed a hand on her arm and rubbed gently. Kara stared at the floor, heat stirring in her body, provoked by the touch.

“Kara, look at me.” Cat’s hand rose to stroke her cheek, and after a moment’s hesitance, Kara’s eyes flicked to hers. “I want you to _stay_.”

_She wants me to stay. How much clearer than this do I need her to be?_ But still, the _entire night_ , those texts, flying here, her shirt torn to reveal her house crest, they way Cat’s fingers felt inside of her… it made her throat go dry. It all felt like a dream, a trap, too good to be true and at the same time terrifying for its significance.

“Just- come here.” Cat held her arms out wide, motioned Kara to get closer, and she did; she approached tentatively at first, wrapped her arms around Cat’s small waist and felt the older woman pull her to her chest, hold her impossibly tight. Kara softened in her arms, rested her head on Cat’s shoulder and breathed in that heavenly smell of hers, forgot at once all her worries, her reservations, forgot for a minute where she was.

They held each other in silence for a long moment until Cat’s lips found hers again, and kissing her was second nature; dragging her tongue on those delicious lips was the best thing she’d ever done in her life, and she wanted nothing more than to suck and nibble and move her mouth against Cat’s as her hands ran through Kara’s hair, drew jagged lines on her scalp.

Cat’s hands gripped her possessively; she felt them roam on her back and play with the straps of her bra. “I, uhm, took the liberty of putting my underwear back on.”

“We’ll remedy that in a moment.” Cat smiled, one of those knowing smiles that Kara was starting to recognise as the prelude to something wicked.

Cat took Kara’s hand in hers and dragged her to the centre of the room. “Lie there for me darling, will you?” Kara complied, climbing on the king size bed, resting her shoulders on the soft pillows, and looked back at Cat, seeking confirmation. Cat, who followed her onto the bed and padded to her on all fours - a cat on the prowl - spread her legs with a gentle nudge of her hand and settled between them with a grin. “I believe we weren’t _done_.”

The tension that gripped her was a special kind of torture; she longed for it like a stubborn child who puts a hand in the fire over and over, getting burned every time. “You don’t have to-” The sentence choked in her throat before she could finish it.

“Hush now. I do, after all, what I _want to_.” Cat dragged her panties down for the second time that evening, and it was all Kara could do not to moan, her senses screaming at her as the piece of black fabric slid from her hips and was set down on the bed next to her.

Cat ran a hand on her thighs, tickling and teasing the sensitive skin, as she inched closer and closer. Kara had stopped looking once her underwear had been set aside, concentrating her strength on maintaining control, and was startled by Cat’s voice suddenly breaking her focus. “Let’s try not to wake my son this time?” She opened her eyes to an arched eyebrow, a sly smile of imminent defiance, as Cat closed the small distance and she felt her tongue on her and _holy mother of fuck, Rao, how can I-_

Her whole body tensed, legs flexing and stretching as she gripped the sheets, terrified of making a noise, accidentally tearing the fabric. Cat eased off, giving her a small chance to relax, as she placed hot lingering kisses on her thighs before getting closer again, lapping like a kitten with a bowl of milk, circling her clit with her tongue, slow and wet and hot and _Rao, please, give me the strength to resist this. I am filled with your light. I only ask that you-_

Cat was everywhere; she filled her mind, she overpowered her senses, she was an unspoken sound on her lips, she was in the round waves of quivering tension that shook her, she was in the dripping heat of her sex, present to such an extent that Kara almost forgot Cat was also out there, in the real world, stroking and sucking and licking her pussy in a way that made her feel whole and pure and so in tune with Rao’s immense and beautiful creation that it would be immoral to try to resist it, hold on to some kind of restraint.

So Kara did let go, riding the exquisite balance, no longer worried she’d set the world on fire with her fury, shuddered and tilted her hips and arched her back, begging Cat in her mind to stop but also wishing she never did; she came like she only ever allowed herself to come by her own hand.

She fell into a blank suspended state, her body numb and distant, like it belonged not to her but to some proxy, a surrogate body to whom she had only a faint connection; she never felt so at peace, so void of all worry, as she was at that moment of perfect bliss.

When she came to, the first thing she felt was cold: where she expected a warm body next to hers was only an empty bed. She tugged at the blankets to seek comfort and searched the room for signs of Cat.

She found her in the corner, sitting in an oversized leather armchair, _staring_. Her legs were spread and her kimono slightly open: above the knot in the silk belt, she could see Cat’s gorgeous bra, intricate thin straps that folded over each other to crown and support the cups. Kara’s gaze trailed lower, to Cat’s stomach, and a shiver ran down her spine when she realised Cat’s right hand was in her underwear, moving slowly.

_Holy shit, she’s touching herself_. Kara blushed, both at the explicit nature of her thought and at the expression on Cat’s face, brimming with sex as she sat, almost posed for her, with the look of someone who just fucked the shit out of her and, out of sheer satisfaction, was now getting herself off, _looking at her_.

Kara jumped forward, towards her, but Cat raised a hand in sign of stop. “No, you don’t get to touch me tonight.” Kara swallowed the hurt, not quite sure she understood the request, and sat back on the bed, leaning back on her arms, settled for the spectator sport.

Cat’s hand didn’t stop, every movement deliberate, dragged out painstakingly slow, and she shuddered a little, her lips trembling, her neck craned back. Kara could see the veins pulsing on her throat and was taken by a sudden urge to bury her face there, just nuzzle and bite and leave purple marks and- “You’re going to have to earn that.” Cat said, nibbling on her index finger, quite obviously _so close_. _Rao knows how long she’s been there, waiting for me to look at her_.

_Is she reading my mind?_ And by all accounts, yes, Cat could read her mind, but in all fairness, her thoughts were pretty obvious. Mesmerised by the scene in front of her, Kara couldn’t stop staring; the vision was a magnet, and she was powerless to resist the shuddering and jerking motions, the way Cat bit her lip and sucked on her fingers, and she swore she could hear her own name whispered as Cat came, closing her eyes and clenching her jaw, her beautiful perfect calves rigid and shaking.

Finally, Cat stood up from the chair: she opened the robe and rearranged the flaps, knotted the belt closed once more. As if was the most natural thing in the world, she walked to the bed and laid down, patting the space to her right for Kara to join her.

Kara no longer had it in her to feel surprised; she moved on autopilot, crawled to rest with her back on the pillows against the headboard. There was barely any space between them, but enough not to touch: Cat smiled silently, recognising it for the deference it was. She shifted closer to Kara, curled up in her arms, head resting on her shoulder, legs touching her legs. _Well_ , Kara thought with a smile, _if I didn’t know any better, I would think we were cuddling_. And perhaps they were, and perhaps it didn’t mean at all what Kara wanted it to mean, but she chose to forego that verdict until another day, so she snuggled into the hug, closed her eyes, and fell asleep happy.

***

Lying in her guest bed, cradled in the arms of the most amazing woman she’d ever had in her life, Cat couldn’t sleep. She stared at the ceiling, examining the light fixtures for any and all imperfections, obsessed about the small cracks in the corner by the door, could see a spot where paint was flecked, and considered scheduling an appointment to have the room redone, except these were not things she’d ever arranged for herself, _these_ were things her assistant handled for her. An assistant who was currently sleeping soundly next to her. An assistant whose arms were wrapped around her waist with affection, that made her feel safe, cared for, and absolutely fucking terrified.

Cat dared to push a lock of hair behind her ear and let her fingers linger to caress her cheek, examine her expression: Kara looked adorable, sleeping with a satisfied grin on her face, features like a sunny afternoon, not a single care in the world. Her face so serene, her lips so perfect… until she realised that her unique intoxicating taste was still on her lips, in her mouth. _And obviously, now that I know what it’s like to feel her come on my tongue, how can I ever_ ever _give that up?_

The idea rattled her; she felt the urge to drink, to cleanse her mouth of the lingering poison. She extricated herself from the embrace and reached for the nightstand drawer, where a silver cigarette case and a lighter were sitting, waiting for a moment such as this.

_I need to think_. And what better place to think, Cat reflected, than the five hundred square foot balcony that surrounded her penthouse. She pushed down on the handle to let the large glass door slide aside and was greeted by the familiar breeze of the dead of night.

She patted her favourite chaise longue to check for wet spots and, once she was satisfied the seat was dry, settled into it comfortably; she plucked a cigarette from the case and lit it right away, took a long trembling drag, exhaled in relief.

_What the hell was I thinking?_ What would happen when Kara woke up and realised she was sleeping next to a fifty year old woman? A woman whose charisma and power came from her (oh so very public) persona, from her business accomplishments, her money and fame.

What could possibly happen when she realised that, underneath all that, Cat was nothing like the fierce image that she kept impersonating for the public? That, in spite of all the makeup and expertly designed garments, _she was_ , in fact, _aging_. Her skin drooping, her hands starting to show all the telltale signs, and in spite of her diet and _secret treatments_ and obsessive workouts, when seen from up close, she _did_ have wrinkles.

She sucked at her cigarette as if in it were hidden all the secrets, the foolproof techniques that, once mastered, offered a solution to the problem; when she got to the filter, she reached for a second one without a moment’s hesitation.

_It’s just a matter of time before she realises just how_ old _I am, with my grownup house and my grownup life and my divorce and_ a son… Before long, the ashtray was littered with stubs and her silver case empty. The nicotine had at once dulled the edge of her anxiety and deepened the mark of her conclusion: _We have no future, not really. No matter how good the sex is, this can only ever be just sex_.

She stole a glance at the dimly lit room where Kara still slept, wholly unaware of her sorrow. She couldn’t bear the idea of ruining it for her, although it was clear that it needed to be done. _I’ll tell her tomorrow._

***

Kara woke up with a smile; she stretched and set the covers aside, felt the unmistakable warmth of the sun shining on her skin, comforting like a friendly hug; she paused a little, basking in the light, a lazy cat enjoying a sunbeam, as the power stirred in her, pooled in her stomach, tame and unthreatening.

Kara opened her eyes to a brand new day and realised she was naked in a bed that wasn’t hers. There was no surprise, not really; the events of the night before came back to her in a rush, context for what she saw: the silk sheets, the curtains parted, the unfamiliar balcony, and beyond it, the skyline of the city, breathtaking in its misty beauty.

She blushed as the memories flooded her, and with them a twinge of longing - _Where’s Cat?_ In her heart, she knew the answer: even before reaching out of the room, searching for acoustic clues, she knew that nobody was home.

There was no clock nearby that she could see, and Kara’s first instinct was to look for her phone: she’d dragged it to the room with the rest of her clothes the night before, left them in a pile by the door, but now the pile was gone. Everything had been folded with great care and sat on the dresser across from the bed - the supersuit too - and her glasses case was on top of the stack, with the object she was after next to it.

She grabbed the device, unlocked it quickly with her thumbprint and speed dialed her sister, barely registering the time on the lock screen. As she listened to the ringing tone on the other end of the line, she thought of Cat setting the clothes aside for her as she slept. She imagined Cat peek inside the room, an hour or so earlier, stare at her sleeping form, gather her things from the floor, considering every item separately. She felt ashamed they’d been touched so intimately without her knowledge, shy that she was staring at them still naked, longed to find at least panties to put on, when her sister picked up the phone.

“Yes?” Alex said with a tinge of impatience.

“Well good morning to you too!” Kara switched the phone to her other ear while rummaging in the pile. “Guess where I am right now?” The grin was clearly audible in her tone.

“I don’t know Kara, did you find another puppy shelter open 24/7?”

“Nope.” She smiled again, barely able to contain the excitement. “I’ll give you a hint: I don’t have any clothes on right now.”

“Kara! Oh my god! Was it Cat? Are you _at her house_?”

“Uh-huh.” Kara nodded, licked her lips, her body language reiterating the admission.

“So? What happened?”

“Well,” Kara paused, searching for the right words, and found that she wasn’t sure she herself had a good summary of the previous night’s events. _I don’t know, I texted her,_ Kara recited in her head, _I told her I wanted her and she asked me to come over and then…_

“That good huh?” Alex teased after a few seconds of silence.

“Yeah.” Kara swallowed, her voice hoarse, warmth spreading in her chest as she revisited the memory. “I thought I didn’t know what I wanted. But _oh, Alex,_ it was… not what I expected at all. It kind of blew my mind.”

“So, what now? You’re dating your boss?” She was going for playful, but her protectiveness shone through and coloured the question with skepticism.

“I… I don’t think so?” As unlikely as it was, the prospect seemed bizarre, exotic: candle lit dinners in fancy restaurants, galas and red carpets, flashes of paparazzi; she shook her head, banishing the vision. “I actually haven’t seen her yet today. She must’ve left for the office already.”

Kara had been so excited at the start of the call, but reality was slowly sliding into the foreground, and it brought with it questions like, _Why didn’t she wake me up?_ and, _How late am I for work?_  “You know what? I’ll talk to you later. I’d better get there myself. I’m still her assistant, after all.”

“Oh, ok.” Alex sounded surprised, but added, “Good luck!”

“Thanks,” Kara said and terminated the call. She stared at her phone for a few seconds after her sister’s picture disappeared. In her head, she listed all the steps needed to get her boss a coffee before the yelling started. _Better hurry_.


	9. Weak and Sentimental

Cat crossed the small distance between her private elevator and her office; her hips swayed with each step, heels hitting the floor at regular intervals. Confidence radiated from her stride, up her calves and through her legs, filled with a quiet sense of authority. She knew she was being overly dramatic and relished in the looks she felt on her, a sea of heads in the bullpen all turned in her direction.

She threw her purse to the couch as she passed by, settled in her chair, and flipped the laptop open with the intention of catching up on the latest headlines, get some work done before her morning got hijacked by the usual distractions. After minutes of staring at the screen, desktop background staring back at her, she had to admit she wasn’t exactly ready to focus. _The day hasn’t even begun yet, and I’m all out of patience already_.

The murky cloud of a headache crept at the edge of her senses, a throbbing halo threatening to burst: the painkillers she took with breakfast were starting to wear off. She held her head in her hands, resting her palms on her burning cheeks, and revisited the memory of how her day had begun.

Cat had woken up in her bed, immediately alert and already on edge; the alarm went off at six, barely a handful of hours since she collapsed after so much of the night had been spent navel-gazing on the balcony.

Anxiety had done its job and pushed her exhaustion to the background as she rushed out of her room in a hurry to make sure Carter was asleep in his bed. She found him lying on his side hugging the covers, the shards of his broken mug in a pile on his desk; she smiled tenderly at him as a new wave of guilt hit her again at the sight and went back to _that moment,_ to the blind gesture of when she’d swept everything off the surface, when the impetus and hunger had taken over and compelled her to _fuck whatever’s on the table_ and to _get the damn girl on it_ , her head pounding with _Kara, Kara, Kara._

Her heartbeat quickened at the thought of _her_ , and she padded silently down the corridor to the guest room, found her just as asleep as the boy had been. The early morning light lent an eerie frozen quality to what she saw; it felt to Cat as if she were walking inside a photograph, a petrified moment before the day began where everything was perfect, none of it spoiled yet by the passage of time, subversive intentions and ideas and _frustrations_.

_God, she is beautiful_. Cat got closer, observed her still form and tried to discern a movement, a pattern, clues that she was alive, breathing. Kara stirred a familiar feeling in her chest, but one that dug deeper than usual, dragged her by her heartstrings and pulled her in as she studied the view of the girl and the bed she had abandoned only hours before.

Her head filled with visions of Kara, the sight before her superimposed with flashes of Kara’s lips parted in lascivious pleasure, eyes closed and muscles clenched, the magnificent balance of her body, lithe and athletic, strong and yet so soft, perfectly supple under her touch. She found she had to steady herself a moment, resist the urge to climb on the bed and place a kiss on her collarbone, lose herself in the smell of her neck. Cat looked instead around the room, resolved to pick up and fold Kara’s clothes: the affectionate gesture, one that she regretted not making for Carter often enough, felt like a good opportunity to put her thoughts in order.

Once the items were in a pile on the dresser, she walked to the writing desk next to the door, fetched a notepad and pen from the main drawer, and sat on the antique chair. Her handwriting flowed graceful and fast on the paper, the words appearing as readily as they came to her mind; the note said:

She stared back at the note and read it once, twice, then again a third time. With every repetition, her chest tightened more; she frowned at the writing and noticed that her words had gained an obscene slant, her feelings reduced to a tiny little scrawl of a symbol, the small “x” before her signature seemed nothing but laughable, immature. She crumpled the note and tossed it in the rubbish bin next to the desk, then immediately regretted it and picked it up again, left the room to tend to her son’s breakfast.

Now sitting in her chair, Cat could feel the little piece of paper, carried all the way from home, burning a hole through the surface of her desk: it sat in the bottom drawer under a pile of files, loudly reminding her of just how _weak and sentimental_ she was.

_Leaving her a note like that…_ Cat sighed, fingers on her temples, and massaged where the ache seemed to pool under her skin. _I mean, the sex was good - very good - but I must think of the big picture here._ And yet the big picture seemed to slip through her fingers like a handful of sand when confronted with how she _missed_ having power over someone; the sheer amount of trust Kara placed in her was an irresistible invitation to take more, to experiment, to see where the boundaries lay.

Cat wasn’t sure exactly _why_ she kept the note, why she stashed it in her private drawer along with Kara’s CV and that cute picture of her Cat had salvaged from the press kit of one of CatCo’s parties. Or rather, Cat knew _exactly_ why she did these things: it was the same reason why, in spite having reached such a clear decision the night before, her heart now ached at the thought of how Kara might take it.

She pictured herself explaining, making it absolutely clear to Kara that their relationship must remain physical in nature, a secret pact between consenting adults, people who understood that feelings had no place in an arrangement like this. She pictured the scene and Kara’s blue eyes a paragon of stoicism, a thin veil of ice on her expression and, behind it, the steady fire of disappointment.

Kara _wanted her_ ; she’d said as much in a text Cat had revisited about a million times since she received it, her mouth drying every time she did. Kara wanted _her_ , and the terms of the negotiation were as part of the game as anything else that had happened between them. One thing though she was certain of: she would remain in control.

_Nobody has to know about this. It is absolutely paramount I don’t let it affect our work relationship. She’s too good of an assistant, and I can’t afford to lose her. I also_ cannot _let it affect my job. God knows how much I stand to lose if I let this little_ liaison _derail me._

***

Kara walked out of the elevator with one arm outstretched in front of her, Miss Grant’s latte getting colder by the second, and hurried towards her boss’s office, expecting the bustling noise of the morning to be pierced by a “Kieraaaaaa” any moment now.

She darted through the door just as Cat was preparing to speak. They looked at each other for a brief moment as the cup changed hands, and Kara’s heart sunk deeply in her stomach as she took in the view of the woman who’d been on her mind since she woke up. Kara’s smile was sweet and coy, blossomed involuntarily, and she saw her own warmth reflected in Cat’s eyes as the words choked in her throat.

Kara wouldn’t have said she was an expert at reading Cat’s expressions, but she had taken a habit of anticipating her needs: she could tell when it was best to reschedule Cat’s appointments and book her a Thai massage; she sensed when her hand was about to reach for a handful of M&M’s and was quick enough to refill the glass just in time. Cat’s expression in that moment was inscrutable. She eyed Kara with a hint of suspicion and sipped her latte without breaking eye contact; Cat studied her smiling, beaming figure as if she were some sort of alien creature, some inexplicable phenomenon who materialised out of nowhere.

“What took you so long?” Her voice was cold, sharp; it was meant to hurt, but by the time it got to Kara, its strength had waned, and it barely grazed.

Kara approached her and leaned in to whisper, “You know _why_ , Cat,” she blushed. “It may have something to do with waking up naked this morning…” She bit her lip suggestively and was about to continue when Cat grabbed her wrist, stopped her words before they could roll off her tongue.

“Not _here,_ Kara.” This second attempt did hurt, and Kara realised finally that Cat wasn’t simply _in a mood_ , but she was actively hostile towards her.

Kara retreated, slightly confused, and at the same time, it was perfectly clear to her that _something_ was wrong.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss Grant?” Her only defense was receding back to her role of the helpful, obliging assistant.

Cat blinked slowly with a furrowed brow and a slightly pained expression. “Advil, a glass of water… and reschedule my meeting with Marketing. I really can’t stand to look at Margaret this morning.”

***

The morning had gone by relatively smoothly; a series of meetings with department heads meant burying oneself in meticulous note-taking, and devoting more time than necessary to reorganising and rewriting. Lunch had been a snarled order accompanied by the privilege of observing Cat pick at her salad in complete silence.

The afternoon, however, inched forward at a sluggish pace; Kara tried to keep herself busy, dive into more work, but every few minutes, her gaze would wander over to her left, to the glass doors that offered her a view to Cat’s office. A single thought kept creeping back to take over her mind: _What happened?_

The last thing Kara remembered from the previous night was holding Cat close, drowning in her perfume, small hands squeezing her hips and a body huddling close to her; she could swear Cat was smiling, she seemed happy, certainly tender, relieved, exhausted. Kara didn’t expect her to be all warm and fuzzy with her - they were _at work_ , after all - but _this_ , _this_ she did not expect.

_Is she still mad because we woke Carter? How was I even supposed to know he was there? She didn’t tell me anything; she didn’t even talk to me. I’ve been nothing if not obedient, respectful, ready for her direction, and- Was I... not good enough?_

The thought made Kara hold her desk a little too hard, and the surface creaked under her grip. _Do I not have enough experience? Did she expect me to do more? Show initiative? Rao, was I a disappointment?_

Kara couldn’t help but glance at Cat’s office again. Her boss was absorbed in reading on her couch, some report or other, she couldn’t quite see. Kara wished one of her superpowers were to make time go by faster, breeze through the last few hours of the day, fast forward through the chatter and the endless cups of coffee, the ringing phones, people typing and laughing and talking to each other from desk to desk, feet tapping the floor and fingers drumming on keyboards, clicks and sips and stares and the occasional sneeze. _Rao_. Kara felt that, if she didn’t get an answer to her questions soon, her head might explode.

***

“So you’re still here.” Cat’s first words in several hours were addressed to her assistant, dutifully hunched over her desk, engrossed in reading something on her laptop.

Kara’s head shot up suddenly, almost like waking from a trance; there was a moment’s pause, as if the first two or three replies that came to mind had been discarded. “I am _here_ , Miss Grant, in case you need me.” Terse, and with just the tiniest hint of aggression, one that could’ve been denied, of course, should it be required.

The room was deserted, the other employees having slowly trickled home after six; Cat had observed them leave their desks one after the other, their departures transforming the bustling office into the quiet sanctuary Cat’s floor was after hours.

“I think it’s time for us to talk, Kara.” Using her name like that was such a deliberate kindness, a gentle caress, a hand that extended an invitation Cat wasn’t sure she could carry forth; she extended it nonetheless.

Before obtaining a reply, she spun around, walked back into her office, expecting Kara to follow suit. Cat ran a hand on the surface of the bar, plucked a glass and poured a generous amount of bourbon, looked back at Kara and inquired “I know it probably won’t affect you, but- would you still care for some?”

Kara nodded, eager and a little tense, and Cat poured a second glass, gestured for Kara to join her on the couch.

“I trust you know what this is about,” Cat started and observed Kara as she gave another imperceptible nod. She grabbed the glass and made her way to the couch, walking stiffly with her head down, staring at her feet.

“I had a good time yesterday; one might say I hadn’t enjoyed myself quite as much in a very long time.” As they came out of Cat’s mouth, the words felt fake, rehearsed. “Did you have a good time?”

When the girl finally sat down, their eyes met again, and Cat felt those soft blue eyes melt her tension and formality, begin their slow erosion of her resolve.

“I did, yeah.” Kara licked her lips and swallowed. “But, Cat, you haven’t looked at me all day… Did I do something wrong?”

“Oh, dear no, darling you-” She made an effort to harden again. “There is a difference, an important difference, between how we choose to spend our private time and our public persona; _you of all people_ should know that.”

Kara was visibly nervous, like a child on the verge of tears, proud and overrun by emotion; seeing her like this made Cat at once angry and impatient to pull her into a tight embrace, shush away all the stress by rubbing her back, kissing her neck, feeling her muscles relax as she submitted to Cat. “Then we can continue to see each other like that… but we need rules.”

“Rules are good,” Kara said, and Cat couldn’t tell what sort of emotion was behind that declaration.

“They are. For instance, I think it’s important that this arrangement remains strictly between us.”

“Yes.” Kara blinked once, slowly, then said, “What else?”

In that moment Cat found the opening she was looking for; an idea sparked in her head and she ran with it. “You may _not_ touch me without my permission. I will tell you when and how I want to be touched.” Cat shifted on the couch, took a large sip of bourbon, and crossed her legs, straightened her back, settling into her role. “For as long as this arrangement lasts, you are _mine_ and mine only.

“I will give you orders. You will take them extremely seriously. You will comply with everything I ask with discipline and precision. Do you think you can do this?”

“Yes.”

Cat reached to grab Kara’s hand, rubbed gently. “I want you to know that I will take care of you, that you needn’t worry about anything beyond obeying, and that you will be rewarded accordingly. Does that sound good?”

“It does, yes.” Kara’s voice was breathy, rough, and Cat had to use all of her self control not to grab Kara by her hair then and there, pull her into a hungry kiss.

Cat felt a buzz in her veins, the trembling anticipation before every beginning. “I have your first assignment.” She paused, doing her best to control her tone. “Choose your safe word.”


	10. Where does one go from here?

They entered the elevator together, and Cat pressed the “P1” button. The pair of them stood stiffly and straight, facing the door, not quite at peace with the tension the small space stirred up.

Kara stared at a point in front of her, the tiniest speck in the brushed aluminum door: she concentrated on the imperfection, how it broke the symmetry of the vertical lines in the surface, while she tried to keep those other thoughts at bay, those thoughts that told her that Cat was _right there next to her_. Kara was thirsty, weak, and sore after a day of worrying and pining: touching Cat would be so easy, even just the light brush of a hand, a squeeze, a stroke, a gentle caress - she’d give her life for a sign of affection.

As if on cue, Cat turned towards her, breaking her concentration. “Just to be clear, you’re not coming home with me. I have a prior engagement,” she said. Disappointing news, but delivered with lips curved upwards and a glimmer of complicity in her eyes, the sort of understanding that two people sharing a secret tend to develop.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ma’am?” Cat repeated, amused.

“Something wrong with ma’am?”

“Nothing, just… it’s an interesting choice.”

“You are a queen after all.” She smiled as she mentally corrected it to _my queen_ : it reminded her of how she’d just agreed to the weirdest proposal of her life.

She had imagined several outcomes: chief among them, she expected to be dumped; she thought Cat would acknowledge the previous night as a mistake and move on, ask her to never mention it again. Kara rather hoped that instead she would be reassured, that the severity was all a mask, that Cat would soon melt again into the sweet, lovely woman she was holding when she fell asleep the night before.

The fire burning inside her, the anger, the urge to _crush, hit, and destroy_ , had never felt so tame as when she sat on Cat’s couch, looking up at her, feeling the calming touch of Cat’s hand on her shoulder, the silent look of approval.

She had never been so eager to say _yes_ to anything in her life.

The elevator doors parted to reveal a grey expanse of concrete, neon lights above illuminated the practically empty parking lot, and a single Mercedes waited in its usual spot.

Kara rushed forward to grab the handle, to open the car door for Cat in an impromptu chivalrous gesture, but was stopped by Cat placing a gentle hand on her back. Kara froze. These small moments of physical contact, even when separated by a layer of fabric, still sent a jolt of electricity down her spine.

Cat stepped between Kara and the car and leant her back on it. She craned her neck, looking at Kara in a way that made her knees buckle. Extending her arms, she signalled for Kara to come closer, placed Kara’s hands on her hips and said in a husky voice, “Kiss me goodnight.”

Kara held her lightly, the tension in her making her self-conscious about gripping too tight, and bent to place her lips on Cat’s, delicate and unassuming. The gentle brushing, breath on breath doubling the heat between them, quickly deepened into a wider, hungrier kiss, her tongue dipping into Cat’s open mouth. It felt like she’d suddenly diluted, turned into a sloshing river, pouring herself into Cat, the balance tipping away from self-control.

Kara pulled away, _need_ burning white hot in her chest. Her hands were still firmly holding Cat’s body, exactly where she had placed them, and Kara had to take a moment to breathe slowly and relax. She could feel the strength pulsing in her fingers, on her palms, the slithering suggestion that it would be _so easy_ to push her against the black door, press her own body into Cat’s, and feel her gasp and moan with all her senses. How _simple_ it would be to overpower her with just the tiniest fraction of Kara’s immense strength - but no, permission first, permission _always_.

The power of the command resonated within her like a song, an ancient primal melody, a reassuring lullaby; it didn’t even occur to her to disobey.

Instead she asked, “When can I see you again?”

Cat chuckled and smiled. “Tomorrow is another work day, dear.”

“You know what I mean,” she didn’t even sound disappointed, just matter-of-fact.

“Be patient, Kara.” Cat placed two fingers on Kara’s lips, in lieu of a kiss, and disappeared in the depths of the town car.

Before Kara could react, the car had left, as if dragged by a silent force, the hum of the engine still roaring in her ears as it bounced around on the walls of the empty parking lot.

***

Cat crossed her legs and smoothed her dress with her hands, settled on the cushion of the garden chair, then took a sip of her mango _lassi_. The plate of food on the table in front of her was almost untouched, one small piece of _goi cuon_ missing from the serving dish, a small concave print in the peanut sauce signalled that at least one bite had been dipped. One bite was all that would go down tonight.

Linda stared at her from the other side of the table; she looked intrigued, put down her cocktail glass, and leaned forward. “No appetite?” she said. It wasn’t an accusation, not exactly, more of a hypothesis. This was her usual way of addressing her: she offered a path, to be accepted or rejected, and adjusted for accuracy, until they got to the point where they could cumulatively and collaboratively describe the full journey.

“I slept with her.” Instead of dancing around the topic, Cat opted for plunging the knife right back in the wound.

“Oh?” It was not genuine surprise. After over twenty years of therapy, there wasn’t much Cat could say that would shock the other woman.

“I don’t know how it happened, I was… I’d been working so hard to convince myself she wasn’t interested in me, but after I was kidnapped by Livewire, something changed. Maybe knowing I was in danger… you know? Either way, she took the first step. I really didn’t have it in me to say no.”

“So that was your motivation: not being able to say no?”

“No, of course not. I just… You think I made a mistake, don’t you?”

“Do _you_ think you made a mistake?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But tell me, Cat, how did it feel?”

“How…? It was fucking amazing, it was… as if all of the reasons I had for keeping her away from me disappeared. It felt like I finally had my life together for just _one second_. It scared me, it showed me that what I wanted was real, tangible, that I could hold it... but I can’t, Linda, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It would ruin me, and she was so… beautiful, and confident, and strong. And she gave herself so willingly, so completely, I...” Cat felt tears gush from her eyes, and her words choked in her throat. She held her head in her hands as she wept; a strange fatigue had enveloped her as she spoke, and crying felt so good, so liberating.

Linda approached with a box of tissues and settled into the chair next to hers. “Cat, I want to understand: what is it about this relationship that scares you so much?”

“Are you kidding me?” As soon as the sobs subsided and she had dabbed at her nose sufficiently, she added, “I’d be the laughing stock of the company! _Cat Grant loses her head for a blonde piece of ass_ , and _a girl_ of all things! Those damn sharks can’t wait to tear me to pieces, and what better excuse than your boring garden variety homophobia?”

“And even assuming I could live with that, supposing for a minute that my barely functional PR department could deal with the fallout, what about Carter? As if they weren’t mocking him enough at school, imagine what they’d do, with his mom being a _lesbian!_ ” Cat pinched her nose, a piercing headache was starting to emerge from the rubble of her thoughts.

“And then there’s Adam… Imagine his surprise when he finds out that the girl who broke his heart is perfectly content _fucking his mother_ instead.”

“In all of this, I have to say, I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned _your_ mother.”

“You know what, Linda? I think my mother wouldn’t disapprove of me dating my assistant.” Cat scoffed instinctively, the very idea of Katherine inciting both anger and defeat. “I think she’d finally get to be as disappointed as she always wanted to be... I’d be revealing my true nature: someone who climbed to the top of the ladder, only to be sabotaged by her ridiculous love for someone who’s essentially a glorified servant.”

“So what now? Where does one go from here?”

“Well naturally I thought I’d have to break things off with her, I thought at the very least I’d have to make it clear that _this_ , whatever it is that’s going on between us, can’t ever be more than sex: _absolutely_ no strings attached.”

“And?”

“And instead I let myself get tempted: she came to me offering a great deal of trust, she practically _begged me_ to fuck her, and you know, you _know_ , I have a soft spot for these kind of power dynamics, so I… invited her to play with me. I set a little bit of light protocol to test the waters, and she seemed to react very positively.”

“Does she know she’s entering a D/s relationship? Did you explain the rules?”

“Oh give her a little credit, she’s a smart cookie, if I know her she’s probably googling ‘BDSM for dummies’ as we speak.”

“I see.”

“And don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled, you know how long I’ve been looking for a play partner, and she may not know a lot about the culture, but _oh_ she makes up for it in diligence, in curiosity. I’m more than willing to _show her the ropes._ ” Cat gave a small laugh at her own bad joke, “I know what you’ll say. If I’m so terrified to date her, why am I inviting her to take part in something possibly more intimate, more intense than your average romance?”

Linda paused, holding the thought, then stood to pour herself a glass of water from the glass pitcher on the table. “I’m sure part of the appeal is the secretive, clandestine nature of BDSM.” She took a sip, cradling the glass in her hands as if it were a mug of tea. “I’m sure part of it is that expressing your sexual desire in a way that feels controlled, negotiated, means it’s safe: if your roles are well defined and your interaction properly scripted, there’s no room for improvisation, everything is very clear, nobody gets confused, nobody gets _hurt._ ”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself. But still, how do I reconcile this with _not wanting_ to date my assistant? Not wanting to expose my family, my career, to the effects of being associated with young Kara Danvers, a girl my son’s age?”

“Each of us is a writhing mass of contradictions, Cat, our public personas and our private personas have interests and priorities that rarely coincide. And while those differences, when viewed side by side, can mutually negate one another, that’s not always the case. I don’t believe it was, as you put it, a _mistake_ , to initiate this. I believe that, if she does prove to be worthy of your standards and praise, and if you _click_ even half as much as you say you do… it can do you both a lot of good.

“I simply urge you to keep an eye on what your true priorities are: your wellbeing and mental health, surely served by satisfying this desire. But also your family relations, and that career of yours that you’re so worried about disrupting. Let’s try to work on balancing them with one another, yes?”


	11. Red Lilies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very sorry this chapter took so long! I was on vacation for a few weeks... and then things got out of hand! I promise i'll try not to let so much time pass for the next chapters :)

The brush felt good in her hand; the material and the grip felt right. Kara rolled it between her thumb and forefinger for a few seconds, getting acquainted with the unique texture of the wood, then touched the tip to a glob of paint and scraped the excess on the board.

There came a sound at the periphery of her senses, distant and barely audible, something like muffled shouts in the shape of her name, and for a moment Kara tried to listen, but the effort required to focus on anything other than _here and now_ , other than her hands and her eyes, the fingertips and the brushstrokes, required something more than superhuman strength.

Her target was the canvas in front of her: horizontal lines in countless different shades of blue poured out of her in wide strokes. She painted fast and with breathtaking intensity, took breaks to observe the cresting waves, the horizon and the sky slowly forming a recognisable image. The feeling was in her hands, in her mind’s eye (just a little out of reach). She gave it a few more stabs then stepped back, taking stock of the result. She felt listless and weary, but something inside her compelled her to continue.

“Kara?” Alex’s voice voice was like a gentle caress as she walked towards Kara with small steps, that careful stance one uses with very young children, with fearful animals.

“Wow, are you already so in love that you forgot which planet you’re on?” Alex said after an unknown amount of time. “Earth to Kara…” she added with a smile, evidently at a loss for what to do.

Kara was standing in a corner of the room staring at a canvas on an easel in front of her; brush still in her hand, she turned towards Alex with her mouth open, surprise mixed with recognition on her face, but didn’t say anything.

A stack of pizzas sat on the coffee table, a six pack of Coors Light next to it; the bottles were cold, beaded with condensation. Alex noticed her eye the food and offered: “Hungry?”

Kara shook her head in response and set the brush back in the jar; she looked down at her hands and found she was dirty up to her elbows. Tubes of paint lay discarded at her feet and a series of paintings against the wall, drying. _How long have I been doing this?_

“What’s gotten into you? I’ve never seen you refuse food.”

“I’m sorry I… I guess I’m just not in the mood?” Kara shrugged, trying to summon the effort to get back to a sociable state of mind.

“Is this about Cat?” Alex’s posture stiffened, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Did something happen?”

The trigger was enough to flood her with the memory of that last kiss against the car door. Kara touched her lips instinctively where they still burned with vivid recognition. “Yes… I mean _no_.”

She wiped her hands on a rag and headed for the kitchen sink, lathered up with industrial soap. She let water run over her hands for a minute, reveling in how the cold slowly started to drag her out of her lethargy. “I don’t know how to explain.”

The reality was simply that she couldn’t describe what the situation with Cat looked like, how it made her feel, and not only because she had promised to keep their arrangement between the two of them, but because she couldn’t find the words.

The pressure built up by a whole day of anxiety was only now starting to relax; she had been drawn to the canvas in an effort to express it, quench the thirst, stifle the yearning. And even if she knew exactly what to say, even if by some miracle she could express how _good_ , how _right_ it all felt, she was still afraid of Alex’s judgement. Of what others would think of a relationship based on sex and power, one whose future prospects left her so wound up, so tense, she forgot (she refused) to eat for a whole day.

“I don’t think it’s going anywhere with Cat.” The lie surprised her, breezed out before she had time to fully consider the consequences. Instead of backtracking, she decided to just go with it.

“Oh, Kara… I’m so sorry. You sounded so excited this morning…”

Kara stared at her feet, knew that she couldn’t look Alex in the eye, that she’d be able to tell right away that Kara wasn’t being honest. Keeping secrets had never been her strong suit. She walked towards the couch nonetheless and sat down, settling into the warm embrace that awaited her. “Yeah… I was.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know… just numb I guess? I’m just trying to make sense of how I got here.”

Alex stared at a point in the distance, deep in thought. “What did she say exactly?”

“She...” Kara stumbled a little; she really didn’t think it through, not this far. “She said it was dangerous to play with these kinds of power dynamics.” Slowly, Cat’s words started to surface in her memory. “She said that work was work, and it was paramount for it not to be affected; that a traditional, romantic, relationship between us would risk upsetting the balance.” _Except, of course, mindblowing sex is ok_.

“I think I had the wrong idea. I mean, we’re talking about _Miss Grant_. Did I really think she was going to… I don’t know, take me out to dinner? Buy me flowers? Chocolates? It was stupid of me to expect romance _._ ” Kara laid her head on Alex’s lap and took a deep breath as Alex tucked Kara’s hair behind her ears and soothingly caressed her face.

“I see.” Alex looked at her inquisitively, as if she were trying to put a puzzle together, but some key pieces were missing. Her expression softened after a moment. “You know what? Better to suffer a small heartbreak now than a much bigger one later… Breaking it off at this stage is a lot less painful than it could have been.”

And to Kara, that almost felt like relief until she realised that Alex had a point: the nagging thought that their relationship was headed for disaster had been staring Kara in the face since she sent that text what seemed like days ago. Except, they weren’t breaking things off at all; on the contrary, they were just getting started. _But then, why am I not happy? Why am I lying to my sister about it?_

“I mean, you knew going in that the chances of it working with Cat were very slim. She is your boss. Not to mention, you know, someone with a son our age...”

“I know! I just… let myself dream for a second that I could have that kind of relationship with her.” And as she was saying these things, as she concentrated on reinforcing the picture she was trying to paint for Alex, she realised they were true, too. She knew going in that Cat wasn’t looking for a _date_ , and yet, the connection they had seemed awfully similar. Kara buried her face in the pillows. It all started to sound a little too real.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we just grab a pint of ice cream and binge watch the last season of Homeland? You know Carrie always puts you in a good mood.”

“Nah, it’s ok.” _Cat might still call, she might want me to come around._ “I think I’m going to bed.”

“Are you sure? We haven’t done a sister night in a while...” Alex lingered on the couch, fingers twirling around Kara’s hair. Her tone had the hint of a whine, a hidden prayer, quiet interested concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I… kind of want to sleep for three days straight.”

“Hey, I get it.” Alex scooched away and stood from the couch, finally resigned. “Well, call me if you change your mind.”

Once Alex was gone, once the door was closed behind her, the lock clicked in place, Kara slumped to the floor, her back against the frame. The gravity of the entire day came down on her all of a sudden, offloading its heavy apathy on her body, in her mind.

She fished her phone from the pocket of her overalls and stared at its blue light, the screen as bright and as empty as ever. No calls, no texts, no notifications or badges cluttering the home screen.

_Yesterday I was here_ , she considered, _Yesterday I was right here and she texted me._ Then she shook her head, the memory of the embarrassment sharp and painful, _I texted_ her _. I made the first move, I tipped the scale, I pushed her._

_And she pushed back._ And the idea hit her: Why not do it again? Why not _ask_ once more, if she wanted attention so bad? And as fast as it came, the boldness vanished, replaced by vague doubts, by her sister’s words, by the _disappointment_ she felt when she realised that, indeed, the pang of longing she felt perhaps wasn’t simply attraction; Kara wasn’t at all sure that, if pressed on the subject, Cat would admit to reciprocating interest.

_What if she doesn’t feel the same way?_ Worse even, _what if she_ does _feel the same way? What are we doing?_ One way or another, Kara couldn’t afford to stick her head out: as bullet proof and virtually invulnerable as she was, this kind of rejection was bound to hurt.

She stared at the small screen: a few minutes after ten.

_I’ll wait,_ Kara reasoned finally as she threw herself on the bed, landing with a thud and the creak of her bed frame, _if she wants to talk to me she’ll call_. She resolved to wait and wait and think of calming herself with a cup of scalding tea, and forgot to set the kettle on, slipping in and out of the realisation of the lingering need to be validated, acknowledged, and above all reassured that, whatever it was that had been happening between her and Cat the past few days, it was not going to crash and burn, it hadn’t been a _mistake_ , and that, if not right in that moment, satisfaction would come eventually.

She stole a glance at her phone once more: a few minutes after ten. _It’s going to be a long night,_ Kara thought, burying her face in the soft covers.

***

Whatever the idea was, whatever her resolve, Cat could no longer remember why she decided to keep herself from Kara for so long.

After days without so much as speaking, the _need_ wouldn’t stop tugging at her, demanding her attention every waking minute, barging rudely into her thoughts and scattering all the cards.

It wasn’t lust exactly, and besides, Cat knew herself enough to have long figured out how to take care of _that_. It was something more like greed, possessiveness: Kara was available, waiting for her even, and every moment of wait made the promise of their eventual encounter all the more sweet.

A week had passed. A whole week of watching those puppy eyes on the other side of the glass walls of her office; Kara looked at her expectantly every time she caught her, waiting for her to grant permission, to utter the command: a single word would suffice, and she’d come flying in.

It had been a long, hard week of stolen glances, of smelling Kara’s perfume whenever she came near. Every time she bent to drop some papers off at her desk, the world slowed down imperceptibly; the temptation was tangible, a siren’s enchanting and sweet song. She looked at Kara and the soft hairs at the base of her neck - oh how she dreamt to press her lips right there, inhale the sweet scent of her shampoo… and then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

Cat sucked in the smoke from her cigarette and glanced at the tv behind her: images from the evening news filled the screen; Supergirl was there, front and centre. _Supergirl_ , who was also Kara, who’d quite recently agreed to submit to her. The thought made her giddy with excitement.

It was extremely hard to reconcile the two images: the valiant superhero who seemed to be everywhere that week and the meek assistant, the squirrely girl who hadn’t said a word to her in days.

She fixated her gaze on Kara’s toned arms, muscles visible under the costume in perfectly high definition, and her fierce stance, cape flapping in the wind, as she posed in front of a building she’d just saved from collapse. She pictured those beautiful legs wrapped around her waist as she fucked her, fingers closing around that slender neck, and her mouth, ragged breath barely escaping her lips- _How the_ fuck _did_ _I think it was a good idea to keep my hands off of her, telling her “be patient” when I obviously can’t even be patient myself?_

If Cat were in the habit of being honest with herself, she might admit that, after a week, the wait was getting tiresome, and there was really only one thing to do. As she grabbed her phone, she told herself she was acting impulsively, that it wasn’t exhaustion that moved her. A quick message, a time, an address: an appointment. The smile that stretched on her lips as she put the device back in her purse was the first good thing she felt all day.

***

Everything had been meticulously prepared for Kara’s arrival: the curtains drawn all the way back to let the sunshine in, the cushions on the sofa stacked in perfect symmetry; Cat had spent the last twenty minutes pacing across the room, re-adjusting table-runners and moving decoration around in a flurry of nerves. The silence bothered her; it was the sort of invisible tension that descended when you were expecting visitors, but Cat couldn’t bring herself to turn on any music, the idea of having to make yet another choice filled her with anxiety.

She smoothed her dress with her hands and inspected it with annoyance: the fabric hugged her in all the right places, but she was starting to regret the subtle floral pattern; it seemed at once childish and excessive. She stopped in front of a mirror to check her makeup for the millionth time, and for a brief moment almost noticed how nervous she was before being interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing.

Cat’s chest tightened when she opened the door and saw Kara standing there, a bouquet of flowers in her hands. Red lilies. Of course Kara had picked her favorites without ever having been told. What she noticed and divined about Cat could be almost unsettling, if she didn't enjoy the attention so much.

“Kara…” was all that she could say before reverting back to being completely stunned.

She looked so handsome and young; she wore a crisp perfect white shirt, tight khakis and a thin leather belt that made her want to nothing more than unbuckle and pull.

The sun shone brightly on the porch, and the light hit Kara’s eyes in a way that accentuated their stunning blue: they reminded her of stormy seas, the mid september sky, windy afternoons on the beach, and Cat could almost fool herself, when she accepted the flowers, that those butterflies in her stomach were just excitement, that the heat pooling in her stomach when she saw her smile was absolutely _nothing_ to worry about.

“Come in,” Cat said in a whisper before walking back inside the house.

_Red Lilies, a whole bouquet of them_ , she thought as she set the flowers in a vase, _did I really never mention?_

They sat down, and Cat observed Kara scan the room, take in its impressive size: the entire wall a glass window to the sea, the sunken sitting area with its white sofas and matching blankets, cushions adorning every visible corner.

There was a silence, the second in a few minutes, that tightened as they waited. The silence was about who was going to speak first. Cat felt wound up like a spring, she ached to reach out and touch her, but was not going to give in and make the first move just yet.

Kara cleared her throat and began: “Thank you for inviting me here.”

“It was overdue, honestly,” Cat purred, honesty slipping in there before she could rein herself in. “I take it you received my instructions?”

“I did, and I want you to know that I have thought about your question a lot...” Kara’s gaze fell for a moment, and Cat saw her fingers clench into a fist; she took a deep breath, then continued. “I think I found a good answer.”

“So, what is it that you want?”

Kara’s face shot up again, and there was a gleam of that familiar Kryptonian steel in her eyes when she said, “I only want to please you.”

Cat scoffed - obviously that was the wrong answer - her raised eyebrow went unnoticed as Kara’s gaze was once more fixated on her own knees. She scooted closer to the girl and grasped Kara’s chin with thumb and forefinger as a lady might lift a teacup, then spoke: “First thing’s first, darling: you will look at me when you are talking to me. You will look at me for the entire duration of our conversation; is that clear?” A brisk nod was considered a satisfactory response.

“Kara, nobody wants to _just please_. There needs to be something that you want to get out of our encounters.” She reluctantly let go of Kara’s face and took hold of one of her hands as compensation. “Some people want to receive praise, become a better version of themselves, or to, say, get a chance to unwind. Some other people might have a desire to be punished, humiliated, or, I don’t know, to become invisible.

“In other words, how do you want to feel? How can I take you to the place where you want to go?”

Kara smiled, timid recognition visible in her expression. “I like it when I do something for you and I get it _just right_ , exactly the way you want it. When I see you so pleased, so satisfied… it makes me feel worthwhile. And in that moment, when I look at you and you tell me I did I good job, I can’t… It feels wonderful.” Kara swallowed. “I want to feel that.”

“Alright: service, praise, what else?”

Kara bit her lip, visibly blushing, and Cat couldn’t help but savour the expectation of what it was that made the girl of steel _nervous_. “Come on, out with it.”

“I like the idea of feeling helpless, owned… yours.”

Cat smiled a wolfish smile: if Kara was squirming at the very idea of it, she couldn’t wait to bring out more of this side of her. “Mmh, that? I can definitely work with.”

“And now something very important: what about sex? Is that something you want from this? From me?”

Kara looked at her, a picture of embarrassment, _at least she’s doing me the courtesy of not looking away_. “I mean, if you’re ok with it, if you think that-”

“I’m asking what _you_ want.” She shrugged in sympathy and squeezed Kara’s hand in hers. “I’m not judging; I’m not expecting one answer over another. I want to really know how you feel about it.”

“Yes… I- Oh, yes.”

“Good. I think we have a pretty good starting point.”  



	12. Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the long wait. Sometimes life gets in the way, and, to put it mildly, life definitely got in my way this time. Either way, your comments and kind words kept me going when I felt like I'd never come back. Thank you <3  
> Enjoy  
> ~

If Kara had been lucid enough, if she had words to describe her state of mind, she might have said she felt a little overwhelmed, nervous even. Instead she stood, hyperventilating, in front of a long hardwood table where all kinds of items where on display, arranged in neat little rows.

She walked towards the table and extended a hand, ran her fingers across the tassels of a small suede flogger: its texture, soft and rugged at the same time, encouraged her to get a little closer. When her fingers brushed the hilt however, she felt as if she’d been struck by a jolt of electricity. She retracted her hand right away.

_Just breathe in. Breathe out. Everything is fine._

Cat’s voice came from behind her. Kara could feel her getting near. “I figured this would be a lot less awkward than talking about it, you know?”

A simple touch on the small of her back at first, her palm then pressed against her, sliding around her waist and gripping firmly.

“Most people get intimidated by calling things by their name. They feel like it gives things power.” Kara felt safe in the embrace, wrapped in something that felt like reassurance but somehow still kept her a little on edge.

For all her talk of restricting affection to their play sessions, Cat seemed awfully eager to touch her. Not that it mattered, obviously. Not to her. If it had been up to her, she’d have turned around and burrowed into a tight hug, rubbed her face against Cat’s neck, all whimpers and moans, hiding from the embarrassment of the task she had been given. She understood herself it was the wrong choice.

Cat pressed a kiss on Kara’s shoulder and stood behind her. “I figured,” she continued in a suave voice, “that in lieu of a more traditional negotiation we could play a game: let’s call it _yes, no, maybe_.”

Kara gulped involuntarily; the words were a whisper close to her skin, and they had quite the effect on her: she was trying to pay attention, focus on the table, but the nearby body, its intoxicating smell, was an easy source of distraction in between brief spouts of concentration.

“I want you to sort these items into three piles: things that you are sure you want to play with, things you are willing to try, and things that are a real turn-off.” Cat squeezed her side encouragingly “... Naturally, if you think something is missing, we can order it.”

Every time she glanced at the table, something different captured her attention: a set of leather restraints first, metal clasps gleaming in the reddish light, a rubber hood then, all shiny latex covered in zippers (the thought of her face stuck in that tight mask left her unmistakably uncomfortable), a gag, a riding crop, and something that looked like a genuine fox tail but- oh- attached to a butt plug.

She took a deep breath and turned to look Cat in the eye “I don’t… I don’t know if I…” she trailed off.

“Just start somewhere easy.” Cat replied with a soft smile.

She scanned the table once more, then resolved to add a blindfold, a shiny blue strip of fabric, to her yes pile. _Start easy, she repeated to herself_ , but as soon as the bundle hit the table her determination faltered and unease gripped her once more.

“I’m just afraid I’ll damage most of these things, you know?” By no means her only worry, but the easiest to voice. Kara felt impossibly tense; her heart was doing that thing where it beat fast in her chest, jolting her away from words and thoughts.

Cat’s expression softened immediately at the sight. “Darling, you must’ve figured out by now that restraint is a state of mind.” She approached Kara once more and took the girl’s hand in hers gently, stroked her fingers. “I’m confident that, if I bind you with these,” she said, caressing a set of padded manacles on the table, “you will manage not to break free, correct?”

Kara squirmed a little at the thought of her wrists being cuffed: in her mind’s eye, her ankles were also bound and she was kneeling, looking up at her Mistress- Cat’s voice broke through the fantasy: “And honestly, if you do? We’ll just buy new ones, or, you know, try something else, until you find your peace.”

Kara nodded, considering the possibility in her head, the chance she might actually feel relaxed enough she wouldn’t want to (she’d have no reason to) struggle or escape.

“Listen, why don’t we choose something to play with now, and we can sort the rest later?”

Kara gravitated back towards the centre of the room, slowly, spotting a loop of thick burgundy rope; she reached out and grabbed it. The fibres felt silken and smooth in an entirely unexpected way; her hand lingered for a moment, savouring the sensation, before offering the bundle to Cat.

“Oh, good choice.” Cat purred.

***

Kara’s hand felt warm as Cat dragged her across the hallway to the room she had prepared for play. Her skin was soft, delicate and inviting: she indulged in touching it, fingers on her wrist, caressed soothingly, scratched at will as she knew she would sooner hurt herself than the girl of steel.

The curtains were drawn, the windows completely hidden behind them, a single ceiling fixture illuminated the space: it was a coil of intertwined glass tubes shooting out like tentacles. Cat barely glanced up at it, noticing instead the effect that the reddish light had on her skin, and smiled.

“Do you remember your safe word, Kara?” Cat announced, as they both stopped at the entrance.

“I do.” And as the words escaped Kara’s lips, Cat noticed that what had earlier seemed like a mass of anxious energy was finally starting to melt into excitement. The girl remembered her orders and held her gaze without flinching, until Cat decided to speak again.

“Very well, then.” Cat closed the distance and kissed her lightly on expectant lips. When she withdrew, blinking once, she had slipped entirely into role. She could see her own severity reflected in Kara’s eyes, took a few steps back.

“Strip, naked. Put your clothes on the chair by the window.”

She observed as Kara dutifully unbuttoned her shirt, savoured every inch of skin and fabric exposed by the gesture. The girl then proceeded to remove her belt, and the sight of that small strip of leather liberated from the loops of her trousers gave her quite a few interesting ideas. Still she remained unperturbed, waiting. Waiting as Kara wriggled out of her pants, waiting as she folded her tank top with trembling hands, as she unclasped her bra and let a small gasp escape her lips, aware as she was that her breasts were visible, and that they would remain so for a long time to come.

“Down.” Cat ordered coolly. Kara obeyed without hesitation, folded her legs underneath her, hands on her thighs, looking up, waiting for further instructions. _What a beautiful pose_. As she savoured the view, Cat stopped to think for a minute that she would give a sizeable chunk of her wealth to watch the girl kneel for her over and over again.

“I am going to use this rope to tie you up until you’re helpless,” Cat enunciated clearly, the sound reverberating softly in the ample room, “then, when you’re completely in my power, I will decide if you deserve to get fucked.”

She took a small pause, licked her lips as she checked for Kara’s reaction: she was blushing, but kept her eyes fixed on Cat, who continued, “If I decide you’ve been a good girl, I will make sure you come as many times as I am satisfied with. Is that clear?”

“Yes ma’am,” Kara replied, her voice faltering a lot less than she was expecting.

Cat ran a hand from Kara’s collarbone to the tip of her shoulder. The girl shuddered visibly under her touch. She moved a strand of blonde hair away behind her ear. “Next time you will tie your hair into a braid, so that it doesn’t get in the way.” Her nails scraped the skin she knew was impossible to mark. “This time, just because it’s the first time, I’ll do it for you.”

Silence enveloped them, both of their breathing slow and regular, as Cat divided her hair into three equal locks and wove it into a long braid.

***

Cool hands, unhurried, travelled on her skin, their touch soothing and electrifying at once; they guided her right hand gently behind her back, then her left, forearms positioned so that they rested flat on top of each other, fingertips brushing her elbows.

When the first double-loop of rope wrapped around her wrist, she breathed in sharply, revelling in the feeling; three more times it ran around her arms, Cat’s fingers sliding underneath to space it out evenly before she started on the first knot.

Ever since Kara picked up that rope earlier, she had desperately tried to imagine what it would feel like to be wrapped in it; in the last few minutes, she’d gone from nervous to alert to perfectly unthreatened. She had seen pictures of women in bondage before and had always dismissed them as rather uninteresting, but it now occurred to her that she had looked at them entirely from the wrong perspective: her gaze had been hungry, aggressive; she’d seen their bodies exposed and their shapes exalted, but it never occurred to her to wonder how they might feel.

By contrast, she now felt herself slipping into a sort of trance as loops of twisted fibre were spun around her chest, just below her neck. Cat’s hands soothed and caressed all the way, tugging her away from her reverie every time her fingers slipped underneath, every time her skin was touched, as the rope slid and was pulled into a knot. She felt like she was being wrapped into a progressively tighter hug, and the room shrank around her until it became impossible for her to keep her eyes open. She squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to focus her senses on the calming, regular motion of Cat’s fingers on and around her, the soft fibres of the rope, more fingers on skin, a pull, a tug, more rope. Two more loops under her breasts, up and around her chest again, diagonally, to connect to the higher stretch of rope, then a series of knots, the last piece of rope stretching crosswise to form a “V” shape pointing to her navel.

After what seemed like an infinite stretch of time - ten minutes, five hours - Cat stopped. Kara had to open her eyes to make sure she wasn’t floating a few inches off the floor: she was not, but the semi-darkness she was immersed in had assumed a familiar tinge. She knew, rationally, that it was the middle of the day, but she would’ve sworn on Rao’s light that, beyond those heavy curtains, the sky was black and full of stars.

She felt Cat’s hands on her before she saw her; they gripped her neck from behind, trailed up and down her spine, making her shiver every time they bumped against the rope. “I’d say you’ve been a good girl so far, Kara.” She felt the whisper escape Cat’s lips oh-so-close to her ear as one hand stroked the small of her back. She arched it instinctively, shifting closer to Cat as her hand slid further down, cupping her ass possessively.

Before Kara could get used to the sensation, she was hit by its absence. Cat’s warmth left her skin and disappeared in a trail of footsteps leading out of the room. The only tether to her were little sound clues scattered along the wait; she strained to recognise them, trying to piece together a story: at the end of the hallway, down four (no, six) steps was the living room, and there a cabinet whose hinges squeaked almost imperceptibly as doors were pulled open. Something heavy thudded as it was set on a hard surface, and Kara recognised the unmistakable sound of liquid hitting the bottom of a tumbler.

The ropes around her body draped her snugly, melting all the hurry and anxiety before it reached the surface of her thoughts. Cat reappeared in front of her eventually, dragging one of the antique chairs in the room and setting it right across from her. She was holding a glass with a generous dose of bourbon in it; she sat on the chair and crossed her legs, then looked at her with the smallest hint of a smile, eyes hungry and hard.

Kara could smell the alcohol, pungent and sharp, colouring Cat’s breath at every exhale. In spite of the temperature of the room rising with every second she spent under Cat’s gaze, Kara felt strangely calm. Being watched like that made her feel like she was being touched all over: it was exhilarating; it sent rushes of excitement across her body; and most of all, it made her suddenly aware of the wetness pooling between her legs.

Kara stopped trying to count her heartbeats, the number of times Cat’s chest rose and fell, and all those moments where her attention faltered and swayed with the temptation to look away from her mistress, take some rest from that silent torture. Until finally-

“Stand up,” Cat ordered coolly, and Kara blinked, hard, before hurrying to comply. Cat was observing with care as Kara tried to ignore the stiffness in her legs and did her best to rise gracefully after kneeling for so long.

Cat gulped down the last of her drink and rose from the chair, positioning herself in front of Kara. She took one step forward, then another; a single hand rose to grasp at the rope that wrapped her chest, in that nexus of knots right between her breasts. Cat used very little force to push her and Kara took the hint by walking backwards, struggling to picture the layout of the room, until her calves hit the soft covers of a bed.

After Cat’s last, decisive push, Kara let herself fall backwards; her arms still bound behind her back hit the covers first.

“Raise your hips.” Kara obeyed, lifting her body up. She felt shivers running down her spine as Cat patted her on the knee. “Yes, good girl.”

“Now spread your legs, show me your cunt.” Cat’s words hit her like a slap, harsh and unexpected. She barely had time to register them before feeling the pressure to yield to their direction; her legs stretched wider apart, exposing herself to Cat, giving her a perfect view of just how wet she was.

Cat leaned over her with a wolfish smile and shoved two fingers inside her. Kara gasped in surprise but gave way to the feeling easily. As Cat moved in and out of her, making her body tingle with need and desire, she found herself wondering whether it was appropriate to push back against it, show that she was _so eager_ for more.

_Fuck me, oh, fuck me, yes_ , Kara thought, and almost as if Cat had intercepted her thoughts, she slipped out of her slick folds and slapped her outer lips. Kara drew in a sharp breath - it didn’t actually hurt, but the blow resonated in her with an intensity she’d never felt before.

“I think you’re enjoying this a little too much,” Cat barked, vicious. “Turn around, face down, ass up.” Kara wiggled and twisted, finding it harder than it ought to be to flip onto her stomach, face pressed down on the comforter, as she drew her knees towards her chest to meet Cat’s request.

“I guess I’ll fuck you like the little slut you are.” She felt Cat’s hot breath on her back, a trail of wet kisses down to her tailbone, and then her body pressed into her in a possessive hug, one arm wrapped around her waist that pulled her close, skin on skin. _When did she take her clothes off?_

Cat’s other hand found her pussy again, dripping and ready, fingers reaching to stroke her clit lightly, then spread her lips to dip into her again. This time she felt more than two fingers fill her up at once, but was too out of it to care. Cat stretched to seize the base of her braid and pull rhythmically as she thrust inside her.

Kara heard herself whimper: the idea that Cat was fucking her savagely, yanking her by her hair, was almost as sweet as the pleasure rising inside her, a rolling wave of heat already almost at its peak.

“Please,” Kara hissed. “Please,” she repeated again. They had no explicit arrangement about it, but Kara thought it best to beg for an orgasm, considering the circumstances.

All she heard in response was a dense chuckle, and then silence. The heat of Cat’s body left her once again, until she felt a sweet touch on her neck, and the unmistakable sensation of fingers digging underneath her bondage, hands loosening the knots.

_Oh shit, what did I do now? Did I say something wrong?_

Within a few short minutes her body was free. She tried to ignore the pounding of her heart, the way it steadily sent quivers of pleasure between her legs, even as she remained perfectly still, on her hands and knees, waiting for Cat to remove the last loops of rope.

“Come here,” came Cat’s voice after a time, a soft tempting caress. Kara turned, and as their eyes locked, one spell was broken and another immediately seized her: it felt as if she’d tripped and fallen into a hole in the ground, an endless well, a tunnel to the centre of the earth. All she could do was look up and see _her_.

She crawled towards her mistress, one careful movement after another. Her limbs were heavy and tired; it took all her energy to focus on the task.

“Good, now sit up, here on the edge of the bed.”

Cat guided her to a spot, one hand in hers, her touch electric and scalding; every time it left her she had to bite back a moan of disappointment.

“I want you to touch yourself for me. I want you to show me how you make yourself come.”

Kara’s mouth dropped open in flash of surprise, and Cat blessed her with a broad smile at that. “Did you think I was going to make you come, pet?”

Far too hot to remember to be embarrassed, Kara let her gaze fall for a moment, and she let one hand trail to her stomach, then slowly move downwards, with a calm grace that she had no idea was in her. She bit her lip and sucked on it as her fingers found her sweet spot quickly.

She tried not to think about all the times she’d done this in private without daring to summon the image of the woman now sitting in front of her, and of the few times she had instead. How sweet it had been to picture her perfect ass in a tight dress, a brief flash of cleavage as she leaned over a pile of papers. All those precious stolen looks, details of the woman she could never have, but that was staring at her with what could be considered amusement. “Focus, darling, I’m not going to give you all day.”

_Fuck, right_. Kara shifted position slightly and slid one finger inside, feeling herself swollen and hot, slippery and ready for more; she curled a second finger to accompany the first as her left hand moved automatically to tug at her breasts, roll a nipple under her fingers, and pinch.

“Such a good girl,” Cat purred in encouragement as Kara carried on, mewing and whimpering and pushing against her fingers. Soon she built up a rhythm, a mounting ache, increasing in tension every time she rubbed against her clit or pushed inside herself deep to find _just the right spot_.

Kara looked up, pleading, barely holding her breath steady, ready to spill, and Cat answered with a curt nod. The grip of her fingers tightened, toes curled in a stiff pose that sent a shower of stars between her eyes as she ground the palm of her hand, mouth open to groan and moan, and shudder to the rising pleasure until she felt Cat hold her and she could no longer hold it. “Oh yes, please-oh Rao!” And it hit her, fast as lightning, harder than any punch she’d ever thrown, shaking her to her core, leaving her sweaty and panting and breathless like she hadn't been in a truly long time.

“Fuck,” were the only words that came out of her mouth before she felt tears roll down her cheeks. She let them run their course and let herself be held as her body made the long journey back to her, one trembling sigh at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on tumblr https://caycelikessuperheroes.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> There is a lot more where this came from, stay tuned for updates :)


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